Withered + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 1) (27 page)

Cavalo saw individual crystals flare in the snowflakes.

There was an electrical snap as the fences came online.

Sentient Integrated Response System said, “Now would be a good time to fight.”

Bad Dog said a low growl,
You shouldn’t have come here
.

Cold water ran down the side of Cavalo’s face.

Another rubber band broke apart somewhere in the distance. It seemed such a trivial thing.

Cavalo heard all of this; he felt all of this. All of it and more in the space of that single second, that little stutter of time. It was as if everything in his world had fired at once like a bundle of nerves uncovered and exposed. The world was electric;
he
was electric.

And as his vision cleared from that burning flash of light in the dark, he saw many things.

The barrel of a gun pointed at his head.

Thomas, his eyes wide, breath streaming from his mouth.

Snowflakes falling so very slowly.

Donovan, face turned, looking back, rifle pointed toward the ground.

The fresh tracks of some small animal, near the cellblock barracks.

Bad Dog, launching himself at Thomas.

A bright arc of electricity along an outer fence.

Jacobs, blood spreading in the snow.

All of this happened. All of it was real. Cavalo saw all of it.

But what he saw the most was the Dead Rabbit, that clever monster, that clever cannibal, I am
Lucas
, crouched atop the cellblock roof near the edge. In each hand were long shards of wood. His body was coiled. His face, shrouded in what at first Cavalo thought were shadows. Then the shadow dripped down the side of the Dead Rabbit’s face, and Cavalo recognized it for what it was: blood. Whether it was his own or not, Cavalo did not know.

There was beauty in this horror. A terrible beauty that Cavalo could not turn from. He might have stood there watching until the end of time had the Dead Rabbit not stepped off the roof into thin air. Into unreality.

Donovan stood directly below him, eyes bulging in panic, unaware of the death from above.

It was fifteen feet. Not far, but not a light drop either. But Cavalo did not see the outcome. Not then.

Bad Dog obscured his view as he latched on to Thomas’s hand. The gun fired. Cavalo heard the whine of the bullet as it passed by his ear. He heard the air splitting. It was only inches.

Bad Dog forced the arm down, snarling and shaking his head back and forth. Skin ripped. Blood flowed. Thomas grunted and nothing more. The gun fired again. An arc of snow rose into the air as the slug punched through. Cavalo could smell the sharp burn of gunpowder.

A loud scream came, but Cavalo paid it no mind. It was tertiary behind the man and the gun.

He moved forward, mind engaged to tear, snap, break. He was moving too slow. He was moving as if underwater.

He watched as Thomas punched Bad Dog in the side of his head. The dog yelped, his grip on the gunman’s hand loosening. The gun fell into the snow, splattered with blood. Bad Dog staggered. The man turned and raised his foot to kick the dog in the head.

Cavalo tackled him, ignoring the scream of his chest, the breath leaving his body in a swift
oomph
. The two men fell to the ground, and Cavalo’s face went into the snow, and it was all so
white
and bright and—

His head bounced off a rock hidden underneath the snow. He saw stars between the snowflakes. He wondered just how far into the snow globe he had traveled. It seemed to be a great distance. Everything seemed to be a great distance. He couldn’t move his arms and legs. He couldn’t breathe. All that made up the man only named Cavalo was stars in a snow globe.
Oh God
, he thought.
So bright.

“Cavalo!” a metal man shouted in his ear. “I’m coming!”

He found himself on his back, though he didn’t know how he got there. Snow fell in his eyes and melted. It streamed down his face like tears. It was the only explanation as to why his face was wet. Cavalo hadn’t cried since… when? Had he cried when Jamie had died? When he’d woken then? He didn’t think he had. He remembered only how dead he felt. He remembered only the weight of the gun in one hand, Mr. Fluff in the other. If he hadn’t cried after his son died, then he wouldn’t be crying now. It was just the snow, the melting snow.

“I didn’t cry,” he said, his voice a croak. He cleared it and tried again. “I didn’t cry,” he told the stars in the globe.

Movement above him. Through the stars. Through the snow. A man stood over him. He had to be the tallest man in the world. He could probably reach and touch the stars if he so wished. He was a curious man, being so big.

The tall man said, “You should have listened.” He raised his leg. His foot loomed over Cavalo’s face. It looked massive. “You should have listened.”

Cavalo saw through the unreality, like dark curtains parting to reveal the sun. It was only a moment, only a flash, but it was enough. His head ached fiercely. His stomach felt nauseated. He was dizzy, and his chest hurt. But he was not going to die. Not like this. Not now.

Quicker than he would have thought he could move, he reached out. Scrabbled for something. Anything. His hands grew cold. Wet. Nothing. Nothing. Then something hard. Near his head. The rock. It was the rock.

Cavalo curled it in his fingers as the foot above him raised higher. He brought it up as the man named Thomas screwed his face together. Cavalo jerked his head to the right as the foot came down and brought his hand up in a wide arc. Thomas’s boot struck the side of Cavalo’s head, causing his ear to go numb. The rock smashed into Thomas’s knee. There was a wet crunch. Thomas screamed. Fell away.

Cavalo rolled onto his back and was lost in stars.

It was later (a moment, a year, Cavalo didn’t know) when the stars faded as a large flat tongue licked up the side of his face.

Get up
, the dog said.
Get up, MasterBossLord.

“Tired,” Cavalo muttered.

I know. But you have to get up.
A cold nose pressed against his cheek and pushed.

“Later.”

The dog growled threateningly.

“Fine,” Cavalo said. He pushed himself up. It was easier than he thought it would be. It was only then he realized he had help.

“This is how you handle things?” SIRS scolded him, pushing him up to a sitting position. “You are
human
, Cavalo. You are not
invincible.
You will break physically
and
mentally. What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know,” Cavalo said. The world grayed a bit before coming into sharp focus. “I thought—”

“I highly doubt that,” SIRS said, tilting Cavalo’s head back to see the laceration where he’d dashed against the rock. “These were not the actions of a thinking man. These were the actions of a… of a… well, of a certified lunatic!”

Tin Man is kind of right
, Bad Dog said.

“Hush,” Cavalo said, wincing as metal fingers pressed against the split skin. “You okay?”

I’m fine. I’m Bad Dog. I can handle bad guys.

“You got punched in the face.”

You managed to fall on the only rock in the prison yard.

“Right,” Cavalo muttered.

Bad Dog huffed at him.

“Are you two done yapping at each other?” the robot asked irritably.

Cavalo shrugged.

“You’ll live,” SIRS sighed. “You have more lives than a cat. How you have survived this long, I’ll never know.”

“Luck, I guess.”

Sure
, the bees said, rattling in his aching head.
Let’s call it that.

“And who is this?” SIRS asked as he stood, his orange eyes bright in the dark. He moved around Cavalo and toward Thomas, who was crawling through the snow toward the fallen gun. The robot moved with calm purpose. Thomas moved with frantic panic. There was no contest. The robot reached the gun and tossed it back at Cavalo. Thomas turned over on his back and stared up at SIRS.

“Impossible,” he sputtered. His eyes were wide. Almost crazy. And for the first time, there was fear. “You can’t exist. We would have known. We would have been told. The Forefathers would have
known
. I order you to stand down, robot! You will stand—no. Don’t! No!
I order you to
—”

He was silenced when SIRS reached down and knocked him upside the head, rendering him unconscious. He rose and stood above him, his orange eyes burning harshly in the dark. From deep inside him came a beep. A click. Another beep. Finally the robot said, “Noisy, that one is. I much prefer you. You are economical with your words, Cavalo, to put it lightly.”

Cavalo said nothing. He’d barely heard Thomas or the robot. His eyes had found the only other living soul in the prison.

“Cavalo?” SIRS asked. “What are you… oh. That… this is… different.”

Blood
, Bad Dog whispered.
Blood. Blood.

And there was. So much of it. It coated the snow near the cellblock barracks, causing it to melt partially and turn a deeper maroon. The man named Donovan lay on the ground, partially buried. His rifle, unused and bloody, was stuck barrel first into the falling snow. His arms were curved up toward the sky, curved into frozen claws. The cloth across his face had been torn away. His eyes were wide and glassy, seeing nothing. Snow fell into them and then trickled down the side of his face, as if the dead could cry. His mouth was twisted into a silent scream. Blood coated his teeth. His lips. His chin. And his neck. His ruined neck that resembled nothing more than a pile of bloody meat and pulp, torn to shreds. Shards of wood still jutted from the mass.

And above him, above this man who had died an unimaginable death, stood the Dead Rabbit. The boy.
I am Lucas.
He stood above Donovan, feet planted on either side of the body. In one hand was a long pointed piece of wood, coated in gore. His other hand was bloody. There were scratch marks on his face and arms where Donovan had attempted to fight back. His chest heaved. His head was cocked. It was there that Cavalo found those dark eyes. They locked with his. There was rage there. There was insanity there. There were monsters. And horror. And death. Only death.

For the first time in a long time, fascination outweighed fear. He could not stop it no matter how hard he tried.

No one moved.

No one spoke.

Then:

The Dead Rabbit (
Lucas
, Cavalo told himself,
Lucas
) raised his hand, his eyes never leaving Cavalo. He pointed the bloody shard of wood at Bad Dog. Then at SIRS. Then at Cavalo, where it lingered. He pursed his lips and blew the sound of bees. He pointed at his head.

You all have bees in your head
, Cavalo heard him say.

Lucas turned the wood on himself and blew the sound of bees again. He tapped his head.
I have bees in my head too
, he said. He winced.
They hurt.

He pointed at Cavalo. Back at himself. At Bad Dog. Himself. SIRS. Himself.

We are the same. You have bees. I have bees. They hurt. They break us. We are the same, and you know it.

Cavalo could think of nothing to say in return. He was almost amused that not a single refutation rose to his lips.

Almost.

They stood there, for a time. In the snow. In the dark, the bodies of three dead men and one who yet lived strewn around them.

It was the robot who spoke first. Cavalo could hear him clicking. Processing. Eventually he could contain his insanity no longer and blared: “HOW RIDICULOUS I WAS AS A MARIONETTE! AND HOW HAPPY I AM, NOW THAT I HAVE BECOME A REAL BOY!” His voice echoed across the snow as he stopped. He beeped. He clicked. He whirred. How darkly his eyes shown. Sentient Integrated Response System looked at Cavalo and asked, “What do we do with him now?”

Smells Different
, Bad Dog agreed.
Blood. Smells Different. Kill him or keep him?

And for all the dark wonder Cavalo saw in Lucas, for all the knowledge that came in knowing what he truly was, the man said, “He stays. With us.” He was surprised at how easily the words came out. Like a rubber band breaking. “He stays.”

The snow continued to fall.

revelations

THE FIRST
day was met with silence.

“How many are you?” Cavalo asked the prisoner.

Thomas, who was now in the cell that Lucas had been in, said nothing. His knee had been wrapped by SIRS. His face was bruised. He hadn’t spoken since he’d been placed in the cell. That did not change now. Food was not eaten. Water was not drunk. He sat on the old cot, staring straight ahead.

“The United Federated States of America,” Cavalo said.

Thomas looked disinterested.

“How long has it been since it formed?”

Thomas looked at his hands.

“Where is it located at?”

Thomas smiled.

“Who are the Forefathers?”

Outside, the storm raged, the trees bending cruelly. They were in the middle of a blizzard, and there was no end in sight. The wind moaned around the building, and it sounded like voices. Cavalo wondered briefly if it
was
voices. He knew the dead talked. He heard them all the time.

Thomas pulled the scratchy blanket up over his legs.

“I can last longer than you,” Cavalo said. He left the cellblock through the tunnel, switching off the lights as he left.

THE SECOND
day was met with anger.

No water drank. No food eaten. SIRS had watched Thomas while the others slept, the robot curious about the new human. “He’s certainly different,” SIRS told Cavalo as he moved toward the tunnel door. “If he is who he says he is, then he’s been trained. Like a soldier. Maybe he
is
a soldier.”

“Everyone breaks,” Cavalo said. He knew this more than most. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“I can be of assistance,” SIRS said, looking back at the screen in front of him. “If necessary.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I have… proven methods of obtaining information should I be called upon to do so.”