The Far Shores (The Central Series) (56 page)

“The drugs were the
worst of it, then?” Timor turned his attention back to the magazine, though
Renton was certain that he wasn’t actually reading the article, illuminated
with glossy photographs of triumphant soccer players in the uniforms of various
European clubs. “I noticed burns from electrocution, wounds beneath her
fingernails, and ligature marks on her wrists, but she seems intact,
otherwise...”

Renton felt a certain
amount of comradeship with Timor, united by their shared helplessness in the
face of the suffering of a woman they both cared for, albeit in different ways.

“I believe so. She is a
member of one of the noble families, and the heir to the greatest of the
Cartels. Brennan Thule was prone to bouts of monologue, so I heard much of his
plan even before he approached her. He did not wish Anastasia dead. At some
point after their first attempt at assassination failed – I don’t know when,
exactly – he became obsessed with the idea of making Anastasia his bride.”

That got Timor’s
attention. He studied Renton’s face, searching for signs of a joke or
deception.

“Surely you can’t be
serious.”

“Deadly. He was mad.
Their whole family is mad – and after watching the ordeal they put Anastasia
through, I’m inclined to think the whole lot of them are. That wasn’t torture,
Timor, it was family tradition. They’d all been through it at one time or
another, the whole Thule family.”

“But, why? What reason
could they possibly have for inflicting that sort of deranged ritual on
themselves?”

“If Brennan Thule was telling
the truth, then I think they wanted to be like Ana,” Renton explained, more
because he wanted to say it then out of a desire to inform Zharova of anything.
“To some small extent, they understood that Deviant Protocols are inherently
powerful, if difficult to control, so they sought to induce that in themselves,
through pain and derangement.”

“Madness,” Timor
proclaimed, shaking his head in disbelief. “Do you believe they had any
success?”

“I’m not sure,” Renton
said, telepathically suppressing the memory of Anastasia’s hand passing through
Brennan Thule’s chest to extract a shapeless red mass. “Their protocols are
certainly odd, but I don’t think they would qualify as Deviant.”

Renton was unsettled on
the subject. What he had seen Anastasia do – quantum tunneling, she had called
it – was likely only a single application of her protocol. There was no telling
what else Anastasia’s Reign Protocol was capable of. That implication worried
and comforted him at the same time. Ana, he thought, really was amazing. No
matter how much respect he had for her capabilities, somehow he always
underestimated her.

“I’m worried about her
nonetheless.” Timor shut the magazine and glanced out the window at the vista
of endless clouds that always reminded Renton vaguely of the Ether. “At the
very least, she is exhausted, and the toxins could hardly be out of her system.
I would like to see her rest and receive medical attention, before she attempts
anything further.”

“I agree. But we both
know that she won’t do that,” Renton said sourly. “Regardless of her condition,
Ana won’t let it stop her.”

“But in her current
state...”

Timor didn’t finish his
objection. He blinked hard and then trailed off in mid-sentence. Renton looked
up at what had struck him dumb.

“Whose current state?”
Anastasia asked with a yawn, bowing her head slightly so that the flight
attendant could continue brushing out her hair. She had changed into a black
dress that cinched at the waist and shimmered when she moved. She wore
patterned tights beneath that appeared to be made of lace, and there were bows tied
in her hair, the same blue-black as the hint of eye shadow around her eyes. Her
heels were hand-stitched black leather with silver buckles. They added at least
five centimeters to her height, though the Asian flight attendant still stood
half a head taller. “I swear, I leave the two of you alone and you gossip like
school girls.”

“Milady,” Timor gasped. “I
didn’t mean...”

“Ana.” Renton swallowed
hard. “It is good to see you looking so much better.”

She gave him a rare,
unreserved smile, brushing away the further attentions of the flight attendant
to take the seat between them.

“Thank you, Renton. You
are a dear.” Anastasia put one hand over Timor’s, reaching across the aisle to
take Renton’s hand with the other. “Now boys. Pull yourselves together. We have
a few hours to rest and regain our strength, then we will return to Central. Our
work is not yet finished.”

On second inspection, Kiev tried no
harder to impress Alex.
In the neighborhood of the former chemical factory, there was nothing
green or growing, relatively few pedestrians, and sporadic sidewalk along the
crumbling and heavily trafficked road. They passed defunct and crumbling
factories, enormous repurposed and subdivided industrial facilities, and acres of
rusting warehouses, following a meandering path that was dictated
telepathically by Karim. The only upside was that they were far from the
tension and political troubles of the city center. At least it was a sunny day,
though still quite cold.

“Man, this sucks,” Alex
complained, scratching at the healing wound on the back of his neck. “You grew
up here, Katya?”

“Sort of,” Katya
admitted. “And don’t call me
man
, okay?”

“Sorry. Wasn’t it, like,
depressing?”

“Parts of it,” Katya
sighed, lowering her sunglasses to glance around them. “I didn’t grow up in a
factory, idiot. My parents place was out on the Left Bank, and it was pretty
nice. Between the Soviets, the famine, and the war, there isn’t much of the old
city left, but what’s still around is actually pretty beautiful. Not that I
spent too much time here. My parents deeded me to the Black Sun when I was a
kid, you know.”

“Oh yeah,” Alex said,
feeling guilty. “Sorry about that.”

“What? Don’t be. Best
thing that ever happened to me. Better than growing up useless and unwanted,
like your little friend Emily.”

“Ugh. Could you please
not mention her? I’m trying to forget.”

“Not gonna let you
forget about it,” Katya said, giving him a shove toward the street. “You have
to learn from that situation, Alex, or you’ll stay a little shit for the rest
of your life.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

“Oh, get over yourself.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Alex
didn’t want to admit it, but Katya had a point. He had almost screwed
everything up, getting involved with Emily when he wasn’t even sure if he cared
about her. It was only luck and generosity from Eerie and his friends that had
prevented him from losing the things he turned out to actually want. It wasn’t
an experience that he intended to repeat. “You think we’ll find what we’re
looking for today?”

“Don’t know. I think our
chances would be a lot better if Miss Gallow knew exactly what she wanted us to
find.” Katya gave him a crooked grin. “I hear your role as bait is really
working out lately, so maybe we’ll get lucky...”

“Don’t remind me.” Alex
said, running his fingers along the bandages on his elbows, where the skin was
still in the process of healing. “I’m just glad it’s you this time, instead of
Miss Aoki.”

Katya glanced at him
over the top of her sunglasses. They were wearing the same basic outfit –
fatigues with a vest reinforced with armor plates and combat boots with hardened
toes and insoles. Alex had thrown a sweatshirt over his vest, partly because it
was freezing, and partly because the military gear made him feel self-conscious,
though they had telepathic disguises to discourage passersby from taking a
close look. Katya wore elbow and knee pads in addition to the armored vest,
while Alex had a rifle slung over his back and a pistol strapped to his waist.

“Yeah?”

Alex nodded in response,
putting his hand to the small of his back and attempting to stretch it out. He
was still sore from the encounter the day before, and the extra weight from the
armor, rifle, and ammunition didn’t help much. He wasn’t sure if he felt better
for having it, anyway – he ranked last in marksmanship in the entire roster of
the Program. Alex envied Katya’s ability to get away with carrying little more
than a pistol, a few grenades, and an extensive array of sewing needles, but he
supposed that field experience allowed her the luxury of picking and choosing
her loadout.

“Yeah. I heard what you
said about Miss Aoki to Michael, out in the hallway. You weren’t wrong.”

“It’s Mitsuru, now,”
Katya laughed. “Remember? She told us this morning. We are on a first-name
basis, you know.”

“Guess you got to her. You
had a good point, after all.”

“You’re damn right I
did. She’s a fucking menace. Unless they rein her in, she’s gonna get everyone
killed.”

He hesitated momentarily
while they waited for a series of rumbling lorries to pass, not a single driver
taking a second glass at the pedestrians draped in military gear strolling down
the street. Alex wondered what they saw, when they looked at him through the
filter of a telepathic disguise.

“I appreciate what you
said about me, you know,” Alex admitted shyly, as they walked along another
block of dense industry and storage. “About trusting me. That meant a lot,
coming from you.”

Katya shot him a quick look
before returning to her ceaseless scanning of the surroundings. He wasn’t sure
if Katya’s alertness was standard behavior for her in the field, a
manifestation of nervousness, or even a result of returning to her hometown. Despite
the time they had spent together, Alex didn’t really know all that much about
Katya, he realized.

“Why coming from me?”

“Respect, I guess,” Alex
blurted, blushing as he spoke. “I couldn’t do this shit without you. Hell, I
probably wouldn’t even be alive. I know how much you’ve looked out for me, and
you didn’t have to do it.”

“It
is
my job,
you know.”

“No. Your job is to
protect me. You’ve done way more than that.”

Katya didn’t say
anything in response, so he couldn’t judge how his words had been received.
Alex felt better for having said them, and decided to be content with that.

The further they walked,
the older the buildings were, and the more run-down the neighborhood became.
The vehicle traffic diminished and the trucks that bounced along the cratered
road were in more dramatic states of disrepair. Many of the properties seemed
to be in states of semi-abandonment, and those that were occupied lacked signs
or any of the normal trappings of business. Rust appeared to be the predominant
color, followed closely by the blank grey of cement. The sun was painfully
bright, but the air was cold enough for Alex to see his breath.

“I have my reasons.”

Katya spoke so quietly
that at first Alex wasn’t sure what she said.

“For what?”

Katya averted her eyes,
muttering curses beneath her breath. Alex was puzzled by her reaction.

“It might be more than a
job for me,” Katya mumbled, the words almost lost in the rattle and exhaust of
a passing pickup truck. “That’s all.”

Before he could respond,
in the act of taking a step, some small portion of Alex’s brain sparked to
life.

The memory seemed to
fall from the sky, as if dislodged from some sort of orbital repository of his
past and driven directly into the throbbing core of his brain. It was on the
tip of his tongue, while defying the simple conventions of language. Alex was
hampered by words, his mind a jumble of fragments and impressions, the
emotional freight of memory without the context to place it within. He stumbled
on a protruding crack in the pavement and was so distracted that he almost
fell, earning a quick and confused glare from Katya. He walked behind her,
flat-footed and dizzy, a headache beginning to swell up from the depths of his
mind, a raw ache behind his eyeballs warning him not to follow the train of
thought any further.

It was there
nonetheless, like a faded snapshot in a frayed family album, a snippet from a
movie to which he had forgotten the plot. The wonder of it snagged his
attention away from the increasing pounding in his head.

He remembered Katya. Her
expression was immediately familiar, without the need for elaboration – she was
scolding him, with the grudging indulgence that she always favored him with,
chiding and cursing without a hint of malice. The memory was not of a recent
vintage, and Katya’s face was all wrong – rounder, the features familiar but
not quite established in their typical setting. Her hair was wrong, too, set in
braided pigtails, a style she had never worn in the time he had known her.
There was something else...

His perspective. The
point of view. In the memory, Alex had to look
up
to see Katya, because
she was taller than him. Despite the churning in his brain, the jolts of pain
that ran from the pressure in his sinus all the way to the back of his head,
everything gelled for Alex, the pieces falling into place.

He remembered Katya
being taller, because at the time, she couldn’t have been more than eleven
years old.

Alex caught Katya by her
sleeve, tugging her to a stop, his other hand pressed to his forehead.

“Hey!” Katya tried to
pull free of his grasp. “What’s the problem?”

“That’s why you always
know what to do. I know what you looked like when you were little, you know?
Even though I was probably even smaller.” Alex laughed and shook his head,
unaware the he was crying. The pain in his head blossomed into a migraine, an
icy grip that squeezed his frontal lobes mercilessly. “Anastasia didn’t assign
you to look after me, right? She
let
you.”

“Alex, chill out,” Katya
commanded, taking hold of his shoulder. “Calm down.”

“That makes sense,” Alex
whined, hands dropping to his knees and his breath coming in gasps, hysterical
with pain. “But I don’t understand the rest. We’ve known each other for a long
time, haven’t we, Katya?”

“Get a hold of yourself,”
Katya said urgently, bending down to look him in the face. “Hey, are you okay?
Your nose is bleeding...”

Katya touched him above
his upper lip, and her finger came away red. Alex laughed, the sound echoing
shrill and awful in the confines of his head.

“The funny thing, you
know...it’s not just you. I keep having these dreams,” Alex gestured vaguely,
no idea what he was trying to describe. “I remember Anastasia, too. Why is
that?”

“Alex, you need to calm
down.” Katya was practically holding him upright, and he could taste the blood
that had flowed into his mouth, harsh and copper. His eyes were barely open,
just slits, but he could see concern on her face. “Do you hear me? This isn’t
the place. Fuck! I knew we shouldn’t have come here!”

“Why not?” Alex
persisted, half-blind with pain. “I’ve been here before, haven’t I?”

Katya held a rag beneath
his nose, her other hand pressed against his shoulder.

“Tell me the truth,
Katya,” Alex pleaded, hardly able to hear himself over the sound he first took
as traffic, but then realized was the rushing of the blood in his head. “You’re
the only one I trust. Please. Tell me. What’s happening to me?”

“Fuck, fuck!” Katya
shook Alex as if she were trying to wake him from a bad dream. “Not now! Alex,
I promise, I’ll tell you everything, but now isn’t...”

“What is happening,
Katya?” Alex shouted, the sound reverberating through his skull as if it would
shatter. “Why do I remember you?”

Katya slapped him across
both cheeks, hard and fast, sending blood flying from his dripping nose, then
grabbed him again by his shoulders and yelled in his stunned face.

“Not now!”

“Why not?”

Katya spun him around,
and through squinting eyes and dimmed vision, Alex could make out a woman who
had her short hair in braids, tied with crystals and shells and the skulls of
small birds, wearing a simple white dress and sandals, shining with a light
that was awful, an aura of menace and cruelty that wilted the sprigs of grass
fighting their way up through cracks in the concrete. Alex looked at her, the
agony of his head momentarily receding, replaced with the instinctual fear of a
small animal trapped in the open on hearing the cry of an owl.

Witch!

Alex had time for that
one thought, and the burst of panic that came with it; then his legs crumpled
and his eyes fluttered, as the ground came rushing toward him.

“Oh, no,” Katya
whispered, catching him before he hit the ground. “Oh, fuck. That’s just great.”

***

Eerie woke with a start on an
examination table in the mundane and sterile environs of what appeared to be a
hospital room. There was nothing restraining her, so she sat up, rubbing a sore
spot at the base of her spine and taking in her surroundings. The walls were
painted a soft uniform green, with anatomical charts and symptom posters pinned
up. There was a built-in sink and cupboard, a window that looked out onto
barren hills, and a pair of plastic chairs in the room with her. A stethoscope,
an empty syringe, and a box of latex gloves sat on top of the counter. In the
corner of the room, above the wooden door, behind a mostly opaque plastic
globe, was the blinking red light of a camera.

She noted with relief
that she was still wearing her clothes – a grey-and-blue-striped sweater, jean
shorts, and black tights with sneakers – then discovered a cotton ball attached
with medical tape to one forearm, and a Band-Aid on her shoulder. Wincing, she
removed the tape and cotton and studied the mark she found, which appeared no
worse than a mosquito bite. She put one finger in her mouth for a moment, then
daubed the needle mark with her wetted finger.