Cut Off (37 page)

"Door?" Ness signed with his other hand.

Sebastian gave him a small squeeze.

"Can you open it?"

A hesitation, then another squeeze.

"Then get to work."

Ness murmured the score to Sprite, then stepped back. Occasionally Sebastian brushed a tentacle against the wall, but there was very little sound besides their breathing. After a minute, the door peeled open with a wet rasp, spilling dim twilight into the tunnel.

"What took you so long?" Ness signed.

Sebastian stared down at him. "The door is not quite standard. I can close it on you and see if you are faster to get out."

"Just kidding, man. You are the master of all things standard and non-standard. Now where the hell are we?"

The door opened to the base of a narrow ravine carving through the mountainside. Its quick slopes were dense with bamboo. The orange carpet continued across the red dirt floor. Flowering shrubs lined both sides of the ravine. They weren't obviously part of a topiary, yet something about them was much too orderly to accept as natural.

"Almost darkness," Sebastian signed. "Maybe we wait for night."

"Whatever you think best."

The alien glanced over its shoulder. "If your mind captures disagreement, make it free. Trust must not be as blind as the tunnel."

"If I disagreed, I'd say so," Ness signed back. "But Swimmers always seem to quiet down at night."

"They seem to because they do." Sebastian gazed ahead. Thirty feet in, the ravine curved to the right, concealing whatever lay beyond. "A quick look in the light. Then back to the tunnel to wait."

He took the lead, Ness and Sprite lagging ten feet behind. After the stillness of the cavern, the rustle of the wind made Ness flinch. As the way forward began to bend to the right, Sebastian froze. Behind him, Ness did the same.

Sebastian signed, "Trust?"

"Trust," Ness replied.

"Then give over the guns."

He passed Sebastian his laser, then murmured, "Sprite, give me your rifle. Right now."

"What's up?" Sprite handed over the weapon. Ness gave it to Sebastian's waiting tentacle. "Hey, what are you doing?"

"Shut up!" Ness hissed.

"But he's—"

Four aliens strode from around the curve, silencing Sprite mid-protest. Each carried at least two pistols, possibly more; Ness didn't recognize all the tools in the Swimmers' grip. He recognized the pink bandoliers, though: security/soldiers.

One began to sign aggressively at Sebastian. He responded coolly; Ness wasn't able to pick up more than the opening questions about who Sebastian was and what he was doing there. As two of the Swimmers moved in to menace him and Sprite, Sebastian swiveled his head and winked one bulbous eye.

Tentacles lifted Ness clear of the ground. His pack was pulled from his shoulders. Beside him, an alien lifted Sprite clear of the ground, his legs kicking. He drove the toe of his shoe into the alien's brisket. It lifted him higher, as if to dash him against the ground, then whipped him across the face with a tentacle. He cried out, a welt raising across his face.

"Knock it off!" Ness said. "We're gonna be fine unless you fuck it up."

"Don't tell me this was part of the plan!"

"Trust me."

Sprite gave him a wild-eyed look, then relaxed in his captors' claws. They were carried down the path through the shrubs, followed by a third soldier, with Sebastian and the leader bringing up the rear. They stopped at the second door they came to. One of the aliens gestured beside it and it peeled open. Though it was lit with artificial lights, the interior was irregularly shaped, as if they'd grown the orange substance over the walls of the cavern. For twenty minutes, he and Sprite were held there, clutched in the snake-like tentacles. The three aliens minding them exchanged a few signs, none of which Ness was able to get a good look at. He didn't want to pay too much attention to their gestures, anyway. He wasn't sure what was going on with Sebastian, but the more Ness looked like a dumb vanilla human, the better.

The fourth alien arrived and gestured to the others. With no further ceremony, Ness and Sprite were marched into another tunnel. Its walls and curves were smooth, artificial; soft lights glowed from depressions above eye level. Ness counted down the number of doors they passed, repeating the numbers in his head until it was burned into his brain. Eleven doors and at least two miles later, their entourage stopped beside a door. One alien waved a tentacle before it and it shlucked open. They were taken to a bare room with fine grates in the floor, stripped naked, and sprayed down with lukewarm water that smelled of antiseptic. For the finale, the aliens patted them dry and dressed them in what appeared to be bulky white diapers.

A brief march brought them to a long room lined on both sides with six-foot orange boxes. Sprite's minder peeled the lid from one and lifted him inside.

"Ness?" Sprite said, clinging to the side of the box. "Ness!"

The alien placed a tentacle on his head and shoved him inside. When Ness was lifted into his box, he offered no resistance. The top sealed him into darkness. Through the box's walls, he could just hear the shuffle of the creatures departing the way they'd come in.

"Tristan?" a man shouted, distorted by the clammy organic matter. He laughed harshly. "Got you too, you bitch?"

"Hey!" Sprite yelled back. "Where are we?"

"Is she with you?"

"Got who? What
is
this place?"

The unseen man was quiet for a time. "It's nowhere. And there's no leaving it."

That put an end to conversation. Ness had seen his box was empty, yet he explored it anyway, advancing by the touch of his fingers and toes. He found no seams in the walls. He was able to get his fingertips into the cracks around the lid, but the harder he pushed, the harder it pushed back.

He sat and leaned his back against the wall. Its feel and smell reminded him of the sub. When he decided to sleep, he had no trouble at all.

Many hours later, the lid peeled open. An alien reached in with a metal instrument and held it to his neck, then his ear. The room was lit with the same artificial sources as before and Ness had no idea if it was morning or night. The lid closed again. He thought about exercising, more to wear himself out so he could sleep sooner than to stay in shape, but he wanted his strength to be there when he needed it. Some time later, the box opened and a tentacle handed down two plastic bottles: one full of water, the other with a light, white paste that tasted like vitamins and root mush.

He had no real sense of time, but he figured about two days had passed before he was extracted from his box and herded to join Sprite, three men, and four women. They varied in age, but all were thin or getting there rapidly, and even those of Polynesian or Asian descent were looking on the pale side. Though you could hardly get less erotic than underfed people in diapers, Ness felt his animal side stirring.

As they were shepherded to the blank shower room, he focused on their surroundings, memorizing the route in case it proved useful later. The aliens stripped them and hosed them down. The other seven eyed Ness and Sprite dispassionately, then zoned out, staring at the walls.

While the water was still running, Sprite edged near him. "What are we
doing
here?"

"Trusting."

"That they're not planning to eat us?"

"I don't think we have to worry about that. Not the way they're feeding us."

Sprite balled his hands and rubbed his eyes. "You laugh. But I'm starting to see things in there."

Ness glanced over. "Like what?"

"Like...people. Ones I knew before. I'm not alone in that box, man. We have to get out of here."

"This is what you signed up for."

"I don't remember signing a contract to be incarcerated in a diaper. It smells like a trout's vagina in there!"

Ness didn't bother to hide his irritation. "Calm down and get your head on straight—or settle in for a long stay."

Sprite jerked his head back as if Ness had stabbed him. "What are you saying?"

Ness lowered his voice until it was hardly audible over the splash of the showers. "We've got a job to do. When the time comes, we won't have a spare hand to carry dead weight."

The look in Sprite's eyes deepened. "Then what am I supposed to do?"

"Real simple: hang on."

They were changed into fresh diapers and ushered back to their boxes. Some time later, Ness was given more water and sludge. During what felt like the same day, he was removed for a thorough examination, then brought back to his fleshy cell. Hours slunk past one after another until he was fed again, then showered again. A few hours later, the lid of his box lifted, waking him from a light sleep. He stood and held his arms from his side, waiting for the alien to lift him out into the dim room. Instead, it began to sign to him.

"Sebastian!" he gestured.

Sebastian spread his tentacles, pleased. "Did you worry?"

"Only that you'd finish the job without me."

He tapped his claws together. "Let us get Sprite."

It crossed Ness' mind to lie—to tell Sebastian that Sprite had been carried away, or that he'd gotten sick or died—but his inside star glared with displeasure. He pointed out Sprite's box and Sebastian coaxed it open with three quick taps. Sprite grunted as he was lifted from the darkness.

His jaw dropped. "We're out of here?"

Ness raised his finger to his lips. "Expect we've got some business first."

"Must move quickly," Sebastian motioned. "Use only if necessary."

He handed them both a laser, then scurried to the door and waved it open. Ness and Sprite followed him into the artificial hallway. Sebastian hurried along, entering the second door they came to. He stopped at the base of a spiral ramp. "Stay here."

Ness nodded and repeated this to Sprite. Sebastian unholstered a stunner and moved up the ramp, disappearing from sight. He returned less than a minute later and Ness followed him upstairs, struck by a sense of deja vu as he took in the sight of a control room overlooking a dark jungle, with an unconscious alien sprawled on the floor.

"Stealing their data?" Ness signed.

Sebastian set his pad beside one of the alien computers and hunched over. "Yes stealing."

"You're only finding time for this now?"

"Not trusted.
Have
to steal."

Ness frowned. "Why wouldn't they trust you? Didn't you tell them we were your slaves?"

Sebastian's gestures grew clipped as he worked on his pad. "Yes but they doubt. Some days earlier, was incursion. Humans. The Swimmer we met in the tunnel signaled ahead. That is why they waited for us above."

Ness quit blathering at him to let him do his thing. Five minutes later, Sebastian's control-tentacles went still, then exploded into motion.

He stiffened and turned to Ness, limbs curling toward his body in the gravest concern. "The meaning of this place is to finish the start. To bring a second virus to your humans."

"A second virus?" Ness signed. "A
new
one?"

"A second virus to finish the first."

Ness' hands dangled from his wrists as he fought to process this. "To kill us? Does it work?"

Sebastian nodded. "It has worked for three years. But what doesn't work is transmission. How to spread it everywhere when humans are so thin?"

The answer appeared in Ness' mind as if it had been waiting for this moment. "Trade."

"Nurture the branches and the vines until humans are once more all of the same forest. Then a single fire burns the whole."

Ness gestured to the jungle beyond the window. "And they're using this as the hub. To span the Pacific."

"Yes but more." Sebastian pointed through the window to the dark trees. "The virus is finished, but the reason they wait is that this lab seeks to do more. To embed the virus in the plants. So that it is spread always even if connections of trade collapse."

"More than that! If it's in our food supplies, we'll actively be searching for it."

Ness' head swam. Since Shawn's death, he hadn't particularly cared about the fate of the survivors. But perhaps that was because his interest hadn't been tested. He'd been operating under the assumption that, with the Panhandler burnt out, and the invasion stymied, things had entered a new equilibrium. You might have the odd tribal struggle here and there, but nothing that could once more put the whole species at risk.

Apparently that was all it took to wake his long-slumbering humanity.

"Can we stop it?" he signed.

"I may have a way," Sebastian replied. "Must be fast. Even if, this night could be our final."

"Humanity might be a sack of dirty..." Ness searched for the right sign, but he'd forgotten what they'd decided on. "Anuses. Who get what they deserve. But seeding Earth's plant life with death is against every step of the Way."

Sebastian did his best to grin, but without proper lips, and with hard plates instead of teeth, the expression was a ghastly snarl. "Then I shut down their system—and we bring death here instead."

He turned back to the computers, tentacle tips flying. Images spun across the screens.

"Get ready for battle," Ness said out loud.

Sprite glanced back at the exit to the ramp. "They're onto us?"

"Not yet. Which means we better kill a hell of a lot of them before they get wise."

His face tensed. "You figured out what's going on here."

"It's as bad as bad gets. All that wheeling and dealing in Asia wasn't about the aliens feeding themselves or getting rich. It was about growing a produce network among the survivors, then seeding the produce with the new virus they've been sitting on."

Sprite blinked, laughing stupidly. "That is nasty business. Are we sure these guys aren't Romulans?"

Minutes later, with Sebastian still working on the system, Ness cocked his head at a high-pitched whine. At first he thought it was coming from the computers, but the sound drew him to the window. He glanced over his shoulder. Sebastian was ensconced in his work. The whine intensified rapidly. Before Ness could speak up, a fiery glow sparked from the jungle, outlining a jet. Sebastian whirled. The vehicle soared into the night.