Assimilation (Concordia Series Book 1) (16 page)

“Strega?” I ask, turning in a circle. Empty. I don’t know which way I’m facing.  I don’t know where the meld is.  No windows. Gravity is the only thing that suggests a floor below me and a ceiling above. Otherwise I might be anywhere in space and time. “Strega!”  I shout, trying to hold off the choking sensation, the feeling of not enough air.  Blackness seeps into the edge of my vision as my breath thunders in my ears.

I turn in a circle again, hoping for a break in the endlessness.  In response, I get Jake Armadice. His eyes are big silver mirrors with reptilian pupils. When he steps toward me, I step back and back and back until there’s nowhere else to go.  This time, instead of groping me, he reaches out with hands that end in serpents instead of fingers, three heads on the left, and just one on the right. But the snake heads look like people. On the left, it is the three that make up the local Tribunal. Janat’s head is in the middle, bobbing actively, straining toward me with her fangs bared.  Her lackeys on either side move lazily, only their tongues darting out.  Lyder is the head on the right, and she weaves like a Cobra, her dance enchanting and repulsing me both at once. I know without being warned that if any of those fangs sink into my skin, I will die.

I knee Jake in the groin, and when he flinches, I duck and run. There’s nowhere to go. All I can do is dodge to one side of the room and then the other. He’s impossibly stupid. I keep making the same moves over and over—knee to the groin, elbow to the gut, the flat of my hand to his nose—and he continues to fall for them as if he has no memory.  Maybe he doesn’t. He doesn’t speak at all, just sneers. But I am growing tired, and no matter how stupid, soon he will reach out with those snake hands and one of them, probably Janat, will strike.

My legs fold under me. Janat’s fangs are just about to pierce my neck when I shove my thumbs into Jake’s reptilian eyes, blinding him. The serpentine hands flail, and he vanishes.

The room vanishes, too, replaced with a lush field of green and wildflowers and buzzing insects. The sun is warm, and I’m lolling on a soft blanket at the crest of a hill.  I still wonder where Strega’s gone, but before I can shout for him, I see a couple holding hands, hiking up the far side of my hill. As they draw closer, my heart leaps.

“Mom! Dad!”  I’m on my feet, running blindly. A bubbly feeling rises in my chest and tickles my throat as they call my name. And then he’s there, right there, my father. I hit his solid chest with all the grace of a runaway train, but he barely stumbles. He pulls me off my feet and we’re spinning, spinning under the golden sun, liquid and free. “You’re really here,” I marvel, touching his jaw, which has several days of stubble. His eyes are lined at the corners and deeply shadowed, but his smile is genuine. “How did you find me?” I ask.

He glances over his shoulder as my mother catches up to us and seizes me much as I’d seized him.

“My baby!” she cries. “Davinney. Oh, Davinney!” Her voice is thick with emotion. All at once the meadow is shifting.  I feel like I can touch the vibrant colors. Her words are like cool water over a burn. I taste lemon in the sunlight.  There’s music swirling like water around my ankles…a melody. The harmony falls in thick sheets from the sky to join up with it.

What is this?
I wonder as the hauntingly beautiful melody rises like floodwater.  My parents slick their hair back, droplets of sound flying away from their fingertips. We’re treading in the noise, buoyant.  Dad becomes serious.

“Davinney, you have to listen to Lyder.  You’re in danger. Listen between the lines.”

“Read,” I correct, straining toward him and my mother as the noise buzzes louder. “Read between the lines.”

“
Listen
,” he repeats, growing fuzzy and farther away.

“Dad, no! Don’t go!” I cry. But the sound grows sharp and colder. The melodious water is turning, changing. The vibrant colors of the meadow are overcome with a spreading sheet of ice. I thrash, but my legs become stuck. They’re disappearing down the hill again, and I can’t catch them. The feeling of pins and needles starts in my feet and in my fingertips and rushes up my legs and arms.

What is this?
I wonder again, and suddenly the words are in my mouth, and I’m on the rift staring up at Strega hearing my voice echo around me. “What is this?” I ask insistently, gasping. A mist rises up, chasing my words.

Out come the alpha inducers, and my mind goes flat.

“Am I really here?” I ask him. “Am I back, Strega?”

“Are you?” he asks, studying me.

I blink. The room looks exactly like the hold, and I can feel the firm surface of the rift under my searching hands. “I think so, but after all that, I’m not sure I can trust anything anymore.”  I sit up. Strega blocks me so that I can’t stand.

“Give it a minute,” he says. “You’re less steady than you think.”

“Were you there?” I ask.

“Was I where?”

“Just now, in my head. In the white room, in the meadow…were you there?”

“Does it matter?” he searches my face, then puts the BAU to my lips. I exhale into it, but he doesn’t turn to look at the wall.

“Yes,” I nod. 

“I was there,” he agrees.

“Did I pass?”

“It’s not a test,” he answers.

“You said it was. You said the disks would test behavioral responses.”

“Test is the wrong word,” he frowns for a second, then brightens. “Measure!” he crows, pleased with himself for finding the Attero word he really wanted.

“You can only know what a measurement is if there’s something you’re measuring against,” I point out. He lifts an eyebrow.

“Then I guess you pass,” he replies, one corner of his mouth lifting a little.

“When is this going to wear off?” I ask.

“What do you mean?”

I push him back so that I can stand up. “I still feel weird.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know, just weird.” It bothers me. My head is light, like I might black out any second.  I don’t really feel like I’m inside myself.  I glance back at the rift and see my body lying there, my face chalk white face, my lips blue.

I stumble backward, into Strega, and déjà vu washes over me.

“What is this?” I ask, just like I asked him the last time I bumped into him in holding, when I turned and looked back at what I thought was a bed and saw only a pole and some ripples.

“Relax,” he says, fingers pressing against my temples.  “Remember what I said?  This will be easier if you just accept whatever happens.”

So I turn around and just stare at him.

“Okay,” I say, and wait.

12

THE NEXT THING I am aware of, I’m back on the rift, and the strange feeling is gone. This time I don’t have to ask Strega if I’m back. I know that I am.  He’s no longer answering questions with questions, for one thing.

“Are we done?”

“We’re done,” he agrees, handing me a small red chip sealed in a clear bag with no opening.  “These are your results. Give them to Lyder when you see her.”

I nod and slip the disk into the pocket of my pants. I stretch. I feel like I’ve slept for a month. “What now?”

“Now we have something to eat. You need to continue rebuilding. When we’re finished you’ll have just enough time to catch the slide to the proving grounds.”

I want to ask him about the tests, what the crazy, dreamlike experiences meant. Whether, as my dream-self asked, he was there. But something in me holds back.  I’m not sure I want to know whether he walked around inside my head with me. What if he did and he thinks I’m weird? Or crazy? I’ve been acting crazy enough. I realize that now. I wish Strega hadn’t seen me like that.

“C’mon,” he says. “Food.”

I wish he would talk to me, but we eat in silence and then he walks me to the slide station and hands me my logger. 

“I put the stations in for you. Three slides.”

He doesn’t swipe my forehead. He just looks at me flatly. There’s not even concern in his eyes. My lunch feels like a ball of lead in my stomach.

The proving grounds look every bit as military as they sound, down to the razor-wire fence and armed guards at the entrance.  I guess Concordia doesn’t completely trust the power of breath chemistry and meld chips to keep people in line and out of restricted areas, after all.

I am led to a staging area full of other people whose faces no doubt mirror my nervousness.  No one speaks. Lyder appears in the doorway just as I’m about to sit down.

“Davinney,” her eyes sweep the room, fending off the curious looks, before landing on me. “Come with me.”

I wonder what her intention is in singling me out before the others are called to follow. I feel the weight of their eyes on me as I disappear through the meld behind her.

Almost before we’re through the meldway, she demands my test results.  A few seconds after I hand them to her, she stops in front of another meld and says flatly,

“This is the reaction center. When I open the meld, you will see another meld directly across the way. Your goal is simple. Cross the center, pass through the meld. I’ll be waiting.”

As soon as I step over the threshold, the meld closes, hurrying to keep me inside. Or to keep something in it from escaping.

Through the meldway is a large open field. And that other meld? I’m too far away to see the sensor. I can only take Lyder on faith that it is directly across the way.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but I feel terribly exposed just walking across the field. There has to be a trick to this. If these are proving grounds, there’s got to be something to prove besides the fact that I can walk in a straight line. My father’s voice in my head tells me to move at an angle.

After about a minute of uneventful jogging, out of the corner of my eye I see a German shepherd, not yet fully grown, loping alongside me about twenty feet away.  I can’t help but feel a pang of loneliness, thinking of Shamu. The shepherd turns its head toward me, flashing a doggy grin.  I glance ahead. I still can’t see the meld. I flinch hard when a loud yelp pierces the air and the dog drops.

I fall to my knees as I see the arrow sticking out of its right side, the side facing me. A dark stain begins to pool there. The dog whimpers pitifully and tries to rise. Another arrow just misses my face. I drop lower, into a belly crawl.  I move toward the dog, a female, my stomach clenching at the sounds she makes.

Injured though she is, she wags as I crawl closer. She lifts her head, the high pitched sounds growing fainter. I’m looking into her eyes as they become fixed, empty. Her whimpering ceases, giving way to my moan.

“No,” I swipe at dampness on my cheek, and the landscape ahead blurs. I put my head down on my arm for a second.

A prickling at my neck has me turning to the right just in time to see another arrow coming. I leapfrog over the dead dog and flatten myself. I feel something ruffle my hair as I breathe in dust and fight the urge to lift my face away from the prickly weeds.

I am afraid to rise and run, but Lyder still waits behind the unseen meld. She hasn’t said so, but since entering the center I’ve assumed that time is a factor in this mystery crossing.

“I’m sorry,” I sob.

I lift the dog, launching myself down the field, using her limp body as a half-assed shield. I hear several thuds, and I shriek with each one. Several other arrows breeze past ahead of and behind me.

The thorny weeds, taller and taller the farther I run, clutch and claw at me, poking me right through the light cloth of my pants. They sting and bite and tear. My legs itch and tingle, my muscles burning. The air grows thin. I’m almost out of breath, and the meld seems just as far away as before.

The sickly wet sounds of arrows piercing my dog shield have slowed.  I can’t go much farther, at least not with the dog. My arm is twitching, burning, and my neck and shoulder ache from the weight. Just as I drop the dog, my feet splash into water hidden by the dense carpet of weedy growth.  Another step and I’m plunged in to waist level as a fresh arrow whizzes by, narrowly missing my nose.

I duck down as far as I dare and creep forward, breathing as deeply as I can.  Weeds coat the entire surface of the water, no visible ending just like there was no visible beginning.  I turn my head this way and that, trying to figure out the best course of action. A vicious burning at my cheek and the heat of blood rising decide for me.  I suck in as much air as I can and dive.

There’s no rising to the surface if I need air. The vegetation seems to grow thicker. The light that shows me which way is up quickly fades as I stroke hard, hoping I’m still on course. 

The burn starts gently in my chest.  I manage well for a few more strokes, but then the burning swells rapidly until my heart thumps and pulses in my throat, my head, my fingertips…my blood searching every nook and cranny for oxygen. I remember how quickly I became breathless on the treadmill, how dismayed Strega was by it.  I wonder if he knew how tiring so easily would affect me.

I look down in the water. The bottom is carpeted with mossy growth, gnarled vines and…

Human skeletons.

I almost inhale at the sight of them, at their creepy, bony hands reaching upward, their empty eye sockets beseeching, eager to pull me down. Logically I know the arms wouldn’t float and sway like underwater vegetation, but I can’t dispute what my eyes are seeing. They are reaching for me.

I force my eyes upward. Something lies ahead near the surface of the water, just beneath the tangled carpet of weeds. There’s a U-shaped light in the murky darkness. I strive toward it, eager, trying to beat the on-rushing inevitability of the heaving gasp I am about to take.  My heart creeps upward in my chest, the pressure building. Soon the pressure will burst out of me, leaving a void to fill.  An involuntary countdown begins. Four...more strokes, and I will know this light. Three…arm’s lengths to my last chance, my last hope.  Two…oh, god, I can’t hold on!  One…my hand strikes the U-shaped light, and it is a swinging panel.

I push through the panel, using the frame to forcefully propel myself and burst past the surface of the water just beyond it. My frantic gasping resonates all around me. I’m in a swimming pool. An ordinary, regular indoor swimming pool. Not the vegetation crowded pond. There’s no field, no arrows flying.  There are a handful of people lounging on chairs, and they glance at me only briefly as if I’ve more interrupted them than startled them.

“Davinney,” comes a voice from behind.

I turn, still panting, treading water.  Lyder stands on the deck, her arms crossed in front of her chest.

“Climb out, catch your breath, dry off. I’ll be just through that meld.”

She points across the room and begins to walk along the edge of the deck.  As she does, I see a meld behind her, still open.  Outside it lies the field, empty. I search for the body of the dog but there’s nothing but weeds and dry, yellow grass as far as my eyes can see.

There is a towel on an empty lounge chair. Beside it, a neatly folded pile of dry clothing. Under the chair, a pair of dry shoes. Behind a second row of chairs, I see a cleanse.

I wave my hand near the sensor to lock the meld, even though it is a public cleanse. I strip down, feeling immensely lighter as I step onto the dryer plate.  When I catch sight of eyes in the mirror, wary and wild, I freeze up, thinking someone must already have been inside when I locked the meld.  Realization creeps in. Those are
my
eyes in that pale face, framed by tangled ropes of dark hair.  I prove it to myself by watching my hand slip over the curve of my cheek, turning my head to find the red gully left by the arrow, blood spilling over and trickling down without the steady pressure of water to dam it in.

I press a paper towel to it as my hair starts to move a little, very gradually growing lighter as the warm currents from the dryer plate greedily devour the moisture they find. Someone requests entry and the meld sensor bleeps a denial at them.

I slip into the clean garments and release the meld, earning a dirty look from the impatient woman who enters. I turn back to the mirror.  A second paper towel comes away less red. A third even more so. I’ve stalled long enough. I thrust my feet into the dry socks and the stiff boots. The getup reminds me of a flight suit.

I know Lyder is waiting, but I can’t get myself to move. When I broke the surface of the pool, I thought maybe none of it was real, that I was sleeping.  I assumed I’d wake up on a rift much as I had in holding with Strega, but it hasn’t happened yet, and my cheek is still seeping a little. I didn’t cut it myself.

Two women pass through the meld, chattering away. They barely glance my way as they pass through the sink area to the showers. I duck through the still open meld, but my feet feel too heavy to travel the length of the pool to the one Lyder waits behind.

Lyder’s “thin ice” comment drags me to the meld and through it.  I’m met by a long, empty hallway. With a deep sigh I breeze forward, peeking past open melds and scanning the name plates next to closed ones. The corridor turns and then turns again, backtracking, I think. I find a plate with Lyder’s name on it, then find her standing in a corner of the room.

She’s motionless. As I approach she gives no signal that she knows I’m here. Now I see what she sees. Another person, a guy, just entering the reaction center, about to cross the field.  I watch, too.

It’s exactly the same, except he walks warily straight down the center of the field rather than trying an angle the way I did. The dog, I see now, is released from a trap door to the left side of the field. This one is a Doberman. It zeroes in on him, preferring company or perhaps trained to go straight to the side of any human. It takes longer for the first arrow to appear, but when it does, its mission appears to be the same. It does not fail. The dog goes down, the guy bolts back toward the entry door.  An arrow grazes his chest, and he again turns and runs back the other way, toward the exit meld. He reminds me of a carnival shooting game, turning each time a pellet pings a tin target.

He trips, catching a foot in the tangle of weeds. With nothing to hide behind, he decides to get up and keep running. When he hits the water and goes under, Lyder swipes a panel by the window and an underwater image appears.  Like me, he eventually looks down. Unlike me, he breathes in water and begins to choke.  Immediately the water begins to recede, sucked into invisible drains, and he winds up bodysurfing the skeletons, scrambling, until he reaches a muddy edge of the pool.

He struggles past the ceiling of tangled weeds, finding dry ground only to discover the arrows haven’t forgotten him, one narrowly missing his skull. He skirts the edge of the field pool, ducking and dodging arrows until his feet find a cement stoop. A loud buzz sounds, and he dives for the meld as it opens.

Lyder waves her hand at the wall and our window disappears.

“Why do you kill the dogs?” My voice wobbles.

Lyder’s smile offers no comfort. “They’re robots.  Good ones, apparently, if you were unable to tell you were shielding yourself with a piece of machinery.”

I should probably feel relieved. I do, of course. She wasn’t real. She didn’t die keeping me company. But I suddenly feel as if I have lost something else, instead, though I can’t put my finger on what it is, exactly.

“What was all that for?” I demand. Lyder’s eyes flick to mine, full of warning.

“It was a test. Think about the name of the field.”

“The reaction center,” I supply dully.

“Yes. Consider what we must be looking for,” she mocks, moving behind her desk.

Reactions, of course. But which reactions?  Did this guy fare better, or did I?  I can’t ask that.

“The arrows were real,” I say, lifting a hand to my cheek.

“The archers were not,” she says.  “Computers,” she adds. “Reading your every move.”