He opened his eyes. The basement had now returned to its prewar state. The graffiti was gone. Sitting in her favorite spot, in defiance of all those lost years, was Sheba. Mort(e) got closer. She rose like she had on the day he took her on a journey to the attic at the top of the world.
IDENTIFICATION, she said. But her mouth did not move. Mort(e) felt the word travel through him.
Now that he had arrived at his happy place, Mort(e) was unable to gain control of his mouth.
IDENTIFICATION, the voice repeated.
Mort(e), he said at last. OF dash 2.961630.
Sheba shuddered like an ancient machine switched on after years of lying dormant. At one point, she even flickered like an image on television.
COMMUNICATION ENGAGED.
A clicking sound began, which Mort(e) interpreted as the device’s software kicking in, manifesting itself in the dream world interface he had created.
I’m … Mort(e) stopped, remembering that he needed to speak in short, declarative sentences. The ants did not communicate in messages that began with personal acknowledgements or ended with question marks.
Requesting description of EMSAH syndrome. That one sentence was exhausting, leaving him gasping for air.
Sheba flickered again. BIOWEAPON HUMAN. DEPLOYED. INFECTIOUSSPREADINGCONTAGIOUS. NO CURE. DEADLY. CURE UNKNOWN.
This was what Yojimbo talked about: you had to keep the questions simple in order to keep the fragmented answers manageable. Sheba blurted out adjectives, all telling Mort(e) what he already knew.
Acknowledged, Mort(e) said. Sheba stopped. Requesting source of EMSAH.
HUMANS HUMANITY HUMANKIND.
Requesting … description of EMSAH infection.
More clicking and flickering. Then:
PATHOGEN CONCEPTION-INTRODUCTION TO SUSCEPTIBLE-SUGGESTIBLE SUBJECT.
Mort(e) sighed at the jargon. Sheba stopped talking.
Requesting description of EMSAH infection, Mort(e) repeated.
Sheba began again. ACUTE CEREBELLAR ATAXIA CEREBRAL HYPOXIA. INSERTION POINT SELF-TRANSCENDENCE VESICULAR MONOAMINE TRANSPORTER. ENVIRONMENTAL STIMULI …
The illusion of the basement began to disintegrate. The faces of the human soldiers appeared in flashes around Sheba.
NEUROTRANSMITTER INHIBITOR. EUPHORIA-FLYING. LOGICAL FACULTIES DISCARDED. SUBJECT DESIRES [DESPERATE-WANTING] DEATH-LIFE. SOCIAL PATTERN REINITIALIZED. NEW CONSTRUCT …
Death-life?
Acknowledged, Mort(e) said. Sheba stopped talking. For a moment, the flickering images of the human soldiers stopped. Requesting explanation of death-life.
The muzzle flashes returned as the translator processed the request, blinking in synch with the clicking noise.
LIFEDEATHLIFEDEATHLIFEDEATHLIFEDEATHLIFEDEATHLIFEDEATHLIFEDEATH.
Death-life is life-death? That doesn’t make any—
REPEAT.
Requesting explanation of relationship between EMSAH and death-life.
EMSAH IS DEATH-LIFE. SUBJECT DELUDEDPOLLUTEDCONTAMINATED WITH DEATH-LIFE. SUBJECT DEATH-LIFE. SUBJECT BECOMES DEATH-LIFE.
What?
DEATH-LIFE BECOMES SUBJECT. OVERLOAD. SOCIAL REINITIALIZATION FAILURE INEVITABLE.
Requesting explanation of relationship between subject and death-life.
SUBJECT ENTERS DEATH-LIFE. OVERLOAD. DEATH-LIFE OVERRIDE. LOGICAL FACULTIES DISCARDED.
Requesting explanation of relationship between logical faculties and death-life.
Sheba tilted her head as if being tempted with a treat. INCOMPATIBLEIMPOSSIBLE.
So death-life was not logical now?
Requesting description of final stages of EMSAH.
Sheba did not hesitate: NO-NAME WAR.
Requesting explanation of relationship between EMSAH and Mort(e) OF 2.961630.
Mort(e) blinked once to find himself in the Martinis’ living room, standing before the mirror. But in the reflection, Daniel’s son Michael stared at him. He wore the translator, his eyes vacant like a doll’s.
SEBASTIAN, he said. Then he repeated it, only this time stretching each syllable out in a screeching sound, like the twisting beams of a collapsing building.
The noise made Mort(e) wince. Sheba’s barking cut through the sound. When Mort(e) opened his eyes, he was in the basement again, his safe place. Sheba was with him once more. There was a subtlety in her voice that he recognized. It was the same impatient tone she used on that morning when she gave birth to her little ones. She was begging him to understand something, and losing hope that he would.
The sound of it nearly made him weep like a human. He searched for a way out. The staircase was gone. The windows sealed up. The lights dimmed. Sheba vanished. In her place stood a bearded man painted in shimmering silver and dressed in a long robe. The ring floating around his head made Mort(e) recognize him: St. Jude, the little man from the medallion worn by the old female dog, Olive. He stared at Mort(e) with metal eyes, the pupils smoothed out.
MORT(E) COULD FEEL breath moving in and out of him. The oxygen permeated his entire body and then released from random apertures along his sides. He could move several appendages at once — he waved arms above his head and stretched another pair of arms that were linked to his waist. There was nothing unnatural about it. He accepted that this was how he was put together. He realized that he was experiencing things from the perspective of an insect. An ant.
The Queen.
A shiver of chemical signals told him that he was in a chamber. There were others arrayed about him, standing in a semicircle. Massive worker ants. The ants held smaller ones — baby Alphas, yes—in their jaws. Their chemicals made contact with Mort(e)’s antennae, stimulating his brain with scents, sounds, written words, throbbing pain, colors — all at once.
One of the workers offered a little one for him to inspect. Mort(e) extended his claws to the small creature. He cradled it. The Alpha spoke to him in rudimentary chemical phrases, signaling recognition and acquiescence to authority. And acceptance of whatever fate was in store for her.
Mort(e) understood that he was not simply communicating with the Queen — he was living her memories, absorbing each moment in her thousands of years of life. This larva he held would be given the same data. It would spill outward from the Queen’s brain.
Moments from her life flowed past him. A march through the desert. An animal devoured by a horde of the Queen’s daughters. A tunnel winding into itself, then veering into an infinite number of directions. A parade of human artifacts taken from the surface — pages torn from books, a match, a thimble.
And then there was another Queen before him, a sickly thing, dying. The Misfit, Daughter of the Lost One.
As their antennae touched, Mort(e) felt the agony of thousands of years of despair and solitude. The current of memories stopped, coagulating into a pool around him. Mort(e) could not control himself — he sank his jaws into his (her) mother’s head and tore it off. The claws scratched at the massive fatal wound. The Misfit’s body slumped over.