The Far Shores (The Central Series) (62 page)

“Could be they learned
it from the Witches – they use Ghouls sometimes, after all. Could be something
they discovered in the Outer Dark. Who knows? Short answer, though, is yes – I
think the Anathema have found a way to inoculate corpses with the Ghoul fungus.”
Michael shook his head. “This means they’ve found a way to weaponize their own
fatality rate. You might remember that was the main tactical weakness to their
whole philosophy.”

Alice thought it over.
Michael didn’t seem inclined to say anything else anyway – he just stood there,
watching the building burn and the corpses not do anything at all, balling his
fists and then forcing himself to relax, only to repeat the cycle a moment
later.

She considered it from
every angle, but decided there was nothing she could do with it, not in the
middle of an operational theater.

“Michael, I know this
stuff gets to you. When kids are involved.” Alice put one hand on his shoulder
with all the tenderness she could muster. As she would have freely admitted,
tenderness was not Alice Gallow’s strong suit. “But we’ve got enough on our
plates right now, without trying to cope with all the evils of the world. And
our own set of kids to worry about it. I need to know you are focused, that
you’ve got your head in the game. Okay?”

He nodded, dreadlocks
bouncing along with the motion.

“Yeah.”

“You gonna be able to do
this?”

Michael didn’t look up
from the dead Ghoul, which really didn’t look anything at all like a child, if
that was what it had been, once. His only response was a curt nod.

“You gonna be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” Michael
said softly, turning back toward the triage area. “Just as soon as Alistair
isn’t.”

***

The World Tree was right where it was
supposed to be, according to the plans she had memorized during an earlier
visit to the Far Shores that Vivik had facilitated. Once Emily located the
control room, the telepathic routine the engineers had imprinted in her head
worked exactly as it was supposed to. As machinery hummed and the World Tree in
the adjoining room flexed and shivered, Emily wondered why the Far Shores
hadn’t yet aligned what appeared to be a rooted World Tree. Perhaps it was
intended as an apology for kidnapping the Changeling; a proof of the indispensable
value of the Far Shores in the event of potential violence from the Auditors or
Rebecca Levy. Or perhaps they been afraid to trust their Etheric interference
generator, and assumed the moment they activated the World Tree all of Central
would know?

Whatever the case, the
implanted knowledge assured her that the World Tree was mature and functional.
Whatever else could be said of the Far Shores, they were capable botanists and engineers,
if not soldiers. Surely they had tracked Emily’s progress here, and she
imagined that they were desperate to reclaim Eerie, who was huddled in a far
corner of the building, whimpering from the moment the machinery started to
turn over, filling the room with unearthly harmonics. Naturally, they were
helpless to intervene. Emily had flooded the entire sublevel, saving only this
chamber and the adjoining hallway, with water that was only just short of
freezing. Unless the Far Shores dug up someone who could breathe water, it
would take time to drain the tunnels one by one, to reach the chamber she
currently occupied.

She wondered if anyone
at the Far Shores
could
breathe water. It seemed like the sort of
useless talent they would cultivate.

Emily laughed as the
control panels lit up like a skyline at dusk, the World Tree twisting into the
first stages of alignment. It hardly mattered now.

***

In the null-space of a shared
telepathic session hosted by Haley’s ghost image, the blueprints of the
chemical factory were superimposed like an angular fingerprint from some
determinedly utilitarian deity. The plans were both flat and three-dimensional,
a composite psychic image infused with the observations of the remote viewers,
punctuated here and there with hypertext assumptions – likely hard points,
sniper nests, and ambush sites; estimated forces and distributions; real-time
data relayed from Karim’s surveillance, both mundane and by protocol. Six
months ago it would have been an unreadable mess of light and impressions, but
now Alex absorbed it with casual aplomb.

The session had taken
some time to organize, and accessing it had caused Alex a brief moment of
disorientation and frightful pain – apparently a side effect of passing through
the heavily encrypted telepathic shields that had been erected to exclude any
potential Anathema monitoring of the strategy session. Alex was torn between
resenting the experience and hoping that the countermeasures proved effective.

Changes had clearly been
made, Alex thought, secretly proud at his own progression. The hours of
drilling in the Program were paying dividends.

This is what we think
we are dealing with.

Miss Gallow’s awareness
flowed over the representation, directing their attention with the forced point
of view of a video game cut scene, highlighting a vast empty space near the
heart of the structure where the factory floor had existed.

Remote viewers having
been crawling all over the site for hours, not to mention Haley’s dogs, and
despite the shielding, they’ve noticed a few interesting things. There are
tread marks from heavy equipment all around the facility.

The view of the plan swept
over to a satellite image, juxtaposed with Karim’s high-definition video feed
of the same patch of petroleum-stained mud and tangled weeds. In a nearby
wetland, a large of amount of recently dumped machinery rusted.

This stuff is worth
money to scrappers, assuming they have the equipment to move that much steel,
so I think it’s safe to assume that’s not your normal industrial dumping. The
Anathema have done a fair amount of clearing the factory floor, and according
to our remote viewers, cut sections from the interior ceiling and catwalks as
well. Suffice to say, this is where the party will be held.

Alex’s awareness was
directed back to the center of the old factory, the locations of presumably
removed machinery becoming transparent to represent its currents state.

Whatever they’re
building, it’s big, and that’s good for us. That’s a lot to guard and keep
track of, and a whole bunch of overlooked corners and shadows to work with.

Do we know what it
is?

Katya directed their
attention to the grey mass in the center of the room, formless and vague.

We have an idea.

Alice’s response was
guarded, as if she were weighing the necessity of telling them what she knew.

Part of it is what we
saw in China – a scrambler that prevents incoming apports and muddles the
perceptions of the remote viewers. But this is bigger, and they’ve expended
considerably more resources in constructing this. The working assumption, at
the moment, is that it is a transportation device called a ‘World Tree’,
capable of effecting large-scale transfers of material and personnel through
the Ether without the aid of an apport technician.

Can it reach Central?

Mitsuru’s alarm was
perceptible, thanks to the empathic undertones that accompanied any such
telepathic conference, to compensate for the loss of the emotional context that
tone and body language would normally convey. The grimness of Alice’s response
was equally obvious.

Probably. Can’t
imagine any other purpose for it. Consultations with Vlad and the lab people
are ongoing, but if this World Tree is what our intelligence indicates – based
on a Working rather than an apport protocol – then it should be able to bypass
the barrier that protects Central. With that in mind, let’s discuss potential
Anathema forces. Michael?

Sure. As Mitsuru’s
inquiry probably already made obvious, there is every possibility that we will
find an offensive force in the factory, in addition to whatever defensive
personnel were already on site. Intelligence indicates that the World Tree will
go live within the next ten hours.

It hadn’t been obvious
to Alex, but now that the possibility had been suggested, he certainly found it
troubling. The last Anathema raid on Central had been an extended and terrible
experience, one that he was eager to avoid repeating. He wondered about the
time frame – within ten hours could mean anything from exactly ten hours from
now to right this very moment – and hoped that Eerie was somewhere safe,
preferably wherever Rebecca Levy was.

Then again, it wasn’t as
if she had been in particular danger last time.

We have a rough
estimate of numbers, based on what we faced at the perimeter. Assuming they use
a defensive strategy consistent with what we have encountered at other Anathema
facilities, we can expect forces inside the building equivalent to what we’ve
already encountered. Not necessarily numerically – our best guess is that they
reserve Ghouls and Weir for perimeter duty. Fully transformed Anathema,
however, are more likely – and as we learned from our previous encounters, one
Anathema is more dangerous than a dozen Weir. If there is an attack force on
site, that will not only increase the opposition we face, but also their
caliber. Analytics believes that the Anathema are planning another assault on
Central, and that they will launch it from this location.

Alex harbored private
doubts. Most of the Anathema he had encountered were Anathema in name only,
really just renegade Operators who had changed allegiance but not subjected
themselves to the horrific transformation Emily had described to him.

Scanning for Etheric
Signatures has proved to be nearly impossible. But there is one particular
signature that is well known to Analytics, and apparently they have devised
some kind of sorting equation that allows for a negative proof – that is, if
the equation balances, then that signature is not present. The equation, in
this case, does not balance.

The subtle tension in
the conference ratcheted up dramatically, particularly from Mitsuru. Alex was
sure that they were all thinking exactly what he was, and probably feeling the
same odd mixture of anticipation and anxiety.

Alistair?

Mitsuru’s inquiry was
just barely a question.

Alistair. Plan
accordingly.

Again, the dizzying
shift in perspective, as Michael handed control of the presentation back to
Miss Gallow. Alex had never shared such an intense and prolonged psychic
interaction with her before, and found the experience disturbing. There was a
barely repressed glee in her anticipation of violence that had no parallel in
his experience. He was eager for the session to conclude, so he could go back
to being nervous and sick to his stomach in private.

Chike has made
several apports into the vicinity of the building, and though no hostile action
was taken, the building appears to be sealed and potentially reinforced. The
possibility of traps and defensive countermeasures is too great to risk direct
entry. The Anathema believe that apporting into the facility is impossible, a
factor that will have played heavily into the planning of their defenses.

Or so you assume.

Katya did not bother to
hide her skepticism, broadcasting her wariness for the whole conference to
share.

Are you saying they
are wrong? I thought they had a scrambler that prevented apports, like they did
in China.

To Alex’s surprise, Miss
Gallow seemed amused by Katya’s interjection, rather than infuriated.

They do. But thanks
to Mitsuru’s contact...

The Witch?

The Witch. Thanks to
her, we have a surprise for the Anathema. We have something that will allow
direct access to their facility. We will apport in as two separate teams, one
to engage the Anathema and provide a distraction, while the other will
concentrate on sabotaging their World Tree before it can be activated.

Katya’s thoughts dripped
with disbelief.

You trust a Witch to
this extent? What if she lied? We could just as easily find that whatever she
gave you hands us directly to our enemies, or skips the whole preamble and just
kills us all.

Alex had to admit that
she had a point, even if he wished that she would wait for a more opportune
moment, or at least be a bit more diplomatic in her presentation.
Again,
however, Miss Gallow surprised him by reacting with sarcasm rather than anger.

If you prefer to
attack the building directly, then by all means, go ahead and try and knock
down the doors, Katya. Otherwise, do me a favor, and shut up and listen.

To Alex’s relief, Katya
bit her tongue, though she did not bother to disguise the contempt she felt for
Miss Gallow’s plan. Equally obvious was Mitsuru’s rising anger at Katya, which
she also chose to make public. Apparently, that whole dust-up between them the
day before had left hard feelings.