The Shibboleth (42 page)

I smile. That's right. I did.

I touch the ether. It is weaker up here, the buzz and hiss and sandpaper scratch of the Helmholtz, yet it is still stronger than I've ever endured. There's nothing for it but to leap. I cannot fly, but the shibboleth is the common utterance of life. I can shuck this all off and find what I need out in the void.

“Hey, Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Don't let me fall.”

He grabs my shoulder. Squeezes. “Go.”

I leave the meatsuit behind. The ether is like a firestorm and my spirit a piece of paper caught in an updraft of fire, rising yet burning away in the overwhelming heat. But our minds move with the currents of metaphor, and somewhere in me I remember the force of will it required for me to make that initial step out of my body, when the guard Tased me at Casimir.

I wasn't me; I was the electricity itself, and I traveled beyond my body.

There's a hardening in me, in my will. Not calcifying but tempering into something brilliant and diamond. An apotheosis of the indestructible. I am stronger than whatever they can pour on me, the hurt, the shame of physical injury, the heartache of mockery, the slow death of isolation. None of these things has killed me yet. None of them has ruined me.

Rising upon the invisible winds of the void like a thought, I am beyond influence of the Helmholtz field, and a small part of me realizes I was always beyond it. I just had to make
the realization. Maybe all it ever took was a rooftop and the desperate need to escape.

I move into the space/not space. Where there once were billions of stars above, now there's only bright lights below. The individual flames of minds. I cannot see Negata—he is hidden from my gaze—but I see Hollis, wavering, and Ruark, burning brightly. Moving through real space. Invested in the physical. Rooted in flesh. And beyond them, out on the shoals of the sea of life and light, I see lesser flames, lesser minds. Finding the most suitable one for my needs—one that's fast and deadly—I settle upon it like the devil that I am.

The devil in the flesh.

It's a big male, and he fights me as hard as his limited bundle of awareness allows. Muscular and scarred. I chose a male because, in some ways, it might be easier for me, easier for him. The infestation needs familiarity. Like calls to like. I'm rougher than I should be, because I'm in haste. Inside him now, victorious, it's hard to concentrate, hard to pay attention to anything other than the hunt. No longer concerned with the rabbit warren or the coyote den or the burnt-bloody smell of man, I bound through the trees, heading west. Moving as fast as my meat-starved body will allow.

The softness of the forest floor, the rapturous celebration of the stretch and contraction of muscles—the rest of existence hangs like the fluff of cottonwoods suspended in the air as I move through it, the collective breath of the carnal instinct world. I am the arrow of God. I am the incarnation of Shreve.

When I catch the scent, I can't help but give vocalization to the pure joy of the hunt, my fur stiffening in the cooling night air. A scream. A howl. A
yaowl
of mastery of this form.

The stink of animal spoor and territorial urine markings. The noxious smell of asphalt and unnamable manmade scents as I sprint down the bank and swim the short shunt of stream between my quarry and me.

Up the bank into the brambles and shrubs, body moving fluidly over the ground, racing ever on. Toward Hollis.

And within sight of the lights. Lights hung on trees. Stone buildings flooded with the scent of man, the stink of humanity.

To the left and left and left more, rising again. Sprinting, pushing this body to its utmost speeds. I hear the buzz of the tires of a vehicle—my Shreve brain tells me—and I note it and follow. My vision is the vision of death, the vision of the dark and the hunt. It's easy to mark the people on the wheeled thing, the …
dimly, dimly it comes to me
… golf cart.

There's the plump woman, and a man, hard and muscular with the refulgent odor of oil and sweat coming from him in streamers, wafting behind in their forward movement. I keep pace, off to the side, moving through the trees and open spaces crouched low, each step masterful in its placement and silence.

Stalking.

And there's a boy. The smell of him is like a rabbit, freshly killed, full of fear and desperation and loneliness. To shred him, to devour his heart. Tug at his innards, spilling them on the ground.

No. No.

I wrestle again with the instinct of the beast I inhabit. I need the instincts, but only so far, and that is the problem.

Closer, I can see the woman gesturing to the man, the driver, to stop. The meat-redolent soldier. She raises something to her mouth. “Bunker F, entry requested. Ruark five three eight three nine alpha.”

In the following silence I come forward, low, taking steps slowly, my breath featherlight. A moving shadow detaching itself from undergrowth.

A square of light appears in front of them, sliding open. Rumbling, squealing. Blast doors rolling back to expose the gullet of the mountain. More soldiers await within.

The guard takes the scrumptious boy inside. I creep forward, for the moment hidden by a sourbush. I stay still, stiffening with inaction.

From down the path, I hear the buzzing of another cart. Inside is another man. Reeking of tobacco.

Quincrux.

Ruark greets him.

MeShreve half wants there to be an embrace between the two. Because wouldn't that be fitting, if she loved him and he loved her and I could deprive them of that? But no. She stands almost at attention, big protrusions of delectable flesh sticking askew. Eating her would be like feasting on the fattest deer at summer's end, pregnant and spilling with extra flesh. The man, not so much. He's got a dry, burnt smell like a tree husked by lightning strike.

“This is unfortunate,” Quincrux says.

Ruark dips her head in deference. “The talent itself has incredible potential. The boy, though, was—”

“Imperfect, yes. I know.” He lights a burning stick and breathes in the fumes. “The hard ones, the hurt ones, always fare better. The orphans, the degenerates. Those of us who can
live in a morally ambiguous reality—” He stops, looks about. His gaze passing over me and moving on. “It's a terrible thing we do, but we must do it. You understand this?”

“Of course. There's never been any doubt in my mind.” Her voice is thick, and the Shreve part of me recognizes she's caught up in some fervor, possibly from Quincrux's power, possibly from her personal experience. It would take possessing her to know it all for sure.

“So, we harvest his talent tonight. When will the genetics team be able to start weaponizing it?”

“Not in time for the Maryland mission.”

“Of course not. But beyond that, it will be needed, especially if this insomnia epidemic does not end with a successful completion of Orange Team's mission.”

“A month? Two?”

He nods.

“Have you thought any more about the issue of the Cannon boy?”

“There's no way to weaponize his talents, I'm afraid. I've
worn
the boy. We are, essentially, the same in ability. We must focus on talents of
proximity
.”

“He poses a serious threat to security. He should be harvested for safety's sake.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “No, I need him alive, for now at least. We expended too many resources capturing him and the Graves boy. I am not going to stomach that loss. I am surprised that you, with your—” He pauses, puffs on the cigarette. “Your accounting background, are not more cognizant of that fact. The Graves boy has been improving, correct? Have you reviewed the latest videos of his flight exercises?”

Reluctantly, she says, “Cannon has not had very much time with him, but there was a marked improvement their first session together …”

“This is good. We will need him to begin weapons training very soon, once his flying is up to Green Team levels and he can bear Mr. Cannon in tandem flight.”

“Employ him?”

Quincrux drags hard on his smoke, expels the fumes into the night air. “What do you think is the purpose of all this? Relaxation? Juvenile rehabilitation? We are making the deadliest soldiers in the world.”

“But …” Ruark looks over to where Hollis stands between three soldiers, waiting. “You will just accept the Cannon boy in our midst with open arms? He is …” Her eyes shift in the sockets, as if searching for something. Her breath quickens. “He is
treacherous
. Nothing you can do will change that. And no secret will be safe.”

A long moment of silence between the two humans. I creep forward on padded feet.

“You are correct,” Quincrux replies slowly. “The boy is feral. He will always be feral. But I need to make sure he is not out in the world, causing havoc. He is an uncoordinated motion, and I cannot have him affecting my plans. The situation in Maryland must be settled before we will have a resolution to the issue of the Cannon boy.”

“Pardon, Director, but I still don't understand that.”

“I have told you of Lucius? Our founder?”

“Of course.”

“He left himself too open. Do you understand?”

“No, I—”

Quincrux stiffens in ways I'd never be able to see as a human. Heart rate up, temperature up. Thrumming with physical tension.

“Lucius was a mind.
A mind
. These children call us bugfucks. But we are antennae. We are the voice and emissaries of a species.”

He takes a step toward her. She recoils, if only a little.

“We are pools of water spreading from an overturned glass.” He curses then, in French. I can understand it even suited in this feline flesh. “There are awarenesses beyond ours, do you see? And when the glass is spilled, they will refill the glass. Do you see?”

“No, Director, I'm sorry—”

He passes a hand over his eyes, scouring his face. Exhausted.

“No matter. It is enough for you to know that while Lucius had vacated his body to places unknown, something else—the something in Maryland—inhabited it.”

“Oh. My God.”

“I think it is only like your god in that it is unknowable. And powerful.”

“Director, I only meant—”

He waves his hand. “No matter. No matter. The Cannon boy, we
will
have to deal with him.”

“Harvest his genome?”

“Yes. Perhaps one day.”

Something in her body language changes. She seems more at ease. More relaxed. Easier prey.

“You are pleased?”

“
Yes
.” It's a hiss.

“Still,” Quincrux says, musing. Catlike himself. Playing with
her. “The impenetrables are very interested in him, and I would be remiss if I didn't consider the implications of that.”

“No, he should—”

“Amy. I
made
that boy. He is a wild, uncontrollable force, much like Mr. Negata. But for the moment, he is
my
uncontrollable force. Whatever sort of revenge scenario you have in mind, I require that you forget it. While I dislike probing my subordinates—”

“No! No. Of course you are correct, Director. The Cannon boy will remain at your discretion.”

“At my discretion.”

He moves away from her, back to the cart he arrived in.

“Meteorology reports a massive storm front moving in,” she says. “Orange Team landed at Andrews early this afternoon. They're barracked and will be briefed at 0500 hours regarding the mission. I've sent the latest weather radar to your e-mail and tablet.”

“The telecommunications link?”

“It's hot, though the storm front could cause some interference.”

“I've just come from my office. I will go to Bunker A and brief the Orange Team.” He coughs once and then spits delicately on the ground. “Rally the troops, as it were.”

“May I accompany—”

“No. Please tend to the Hollis boy. He is an innocent. And at least we can dispose of him with the mercy he deserves.”

I bound forward, fast and silent. There are instincts, and I let them have full sway, claws retracted no more. Red in tooth and claw.

Ruark screams, falling backward. Quincrux lurches side-ways,
digging inside his suit.

I snatch Ruark's leg, like hooking a trout from a stream, and feel the claws sink deep into flesh.
Deep
.

The blood-fury burbling inside me rises to match her screams. With two great heaves—she is
heavy
—I have her in the scrub brush at the side of the path, outside of the spill of light from the doorway where the soldiers have unslung their weapons and come running. Her wild fists batter my sleek, furred head.

I'm almost at her throat, jaws unhinged and snarling wide, when two sharp punctures of sound and light penetrate me from the side, where Quincrux lies recumbent. Legs spread, gun in hand.