Levels: The Host (35 page)

CHAPTER 40

W
atly was flying again. Soaring way above the buildings, diving in and out of clouds, feeling the white moistness of them on his face as he passed through. His arms angled gracefully, guiding his body in a slow turn. Down below.
..
the brownstones of Brooklyn. All was golden down there, as it should be. The sun was sinking. Brooklyn-orange spread out below him. But up here in the clouds there was still sun. Yellow sun. No shadows in the sky. Watly squinted when he turned westward. The glare burned his eyes. And down on the steps: two small figures. P-pajer Caiper and Alysess Tollnismer, looking up. They were motioning to him. Trying to indicate something. Near them: two more figures, smaller still. Watly entered a cloud suddenly, feeling the wet cold brush by, and came out lower than before. The other figures were the Ragman and Tavis. They were motioning just like Alysess and P-pajer. Motioning to him. What did they want? What were they saying? Now there was another figure. A tall man, unspecific and fuzzy around the edges. The man he had cleaned with. The man with the high forehead and the crooked nose. He was motioning as well. It looked to Watly like they were all shaking their heads. “No,” they were saying. “No.” No what? What were they warning him from? They waved at him with broad arm motions. “No.”

Another cloud, not visible before, loomed up and enveloped Watly. He was flying blind now. All around him was white. Brooklyn was gone. The sun was gone. Alysess and P-pajer and Tavis and the Ragman were gone. The air was thick with white. Even his own arms before him blurred out into whiteness at the fingers. He kept going forward—the cloud had to end eventually, the air would break
through soon.

And then there was a shadow. Something dark nearby. Watly swerved. His body rolled briefly, but control came back fast. And the something dark was still there. Just to his side. A shadow beneath the white, pacing him, tracking him,
keeping up.

Watly tried to dodge left. The darkness followed him. He dove lower. The shadow was there with him. Watly called out. “Who are you?” The shadow neared his side. “
What
are you?”
he asked.

The darkness deepened as it neared. And now there was a human hand, reaching out toward Watly’s side as he flew. A
female hand.

“Are you a friend?”
Watly asked.

The hand held Watly’s. And he felt comfort, warmth. This shadow was a good shadow. This darkness was the darkness of a friend. The hand released and slipped back to whiteness for a short time. When it returned something gleamed in its palm—something golden like the sunset below. And the hand reached to Watly again, this time holding the object to Watly’s arm. The female hand drove the object in just below Watly’s shoulder, slicing deeply into the flesh, and Watly could feel it pass through muscle to reach bone—snagging on it a moment—and then carving through the bone with a pop, and out to the other side. There was no pain. Watly’s arm dangled, held there only by the thick fabric of his shirt, and then it fell off into the whiteness below. Watly had no control now and he tumbled wildly. He kept trying to balance using the arm that wasn’t there. A face appeared near him in the cloud—the shadow’s face revealed—smiling. It was the face of a child. A baby. Pure and angelic:
totally guileless.

“It’s all right,” Watly tried to say as he fell. “It’s not your fault.” But he couldn’t say anything. The fall left him breathless. His mouth formed the words but no sound reached his own ears. The next real sound he heard—and heard very clearly—was a cracking, a loud crunching sound from his skull and spine smashing into the sidewalk right below the old brownstone he had once lived in. The sound of his
own death.

Watly woke with a start, sweaty and nauseous. He had slept through the unicarriage’s trip to the main sub platform. Had in fact passed it entirely. Now he would have to turn and backtrack. He fiddled with the machine’s controls, unsettled but with no memory of his dream at all. What
did
flash through his mind—and it was a comforting thought at a time when comforting thoughts were hard to find—was that the Subkeeper’s sight had seen the
event
of his death, yes.
..
but not the
when
. Nothing about
when
. It could be a long time away. Watly might still have a lifetime ahead
of him.

After all,
he thought,
we all have to die sometime
.

CHAPTER 41

“
S
he’s holding her unborn child hostage, don’t you see?” Watly was getting exasperated. They were all still in one of the sub’s libraries, where Watly had found them
on returning.

His throat was dry from all the talking. The nervous energy he’d been running on was fading now. He realized with surprise that he had actually just recapped the whole story. Over the last few hours he’d gone back almost to the very beginning. Although he’d already relayed bits and pieces of it to Alysess and the Ragman, this was the first he’d tied it all together for them. Rehashing it was exhausting—almost like reliving it. From Narcolo to the first hosting and everything in between. From Oldyer to meeting Alysess to the air shaft to Sentiva Alvedine to right now. Right up to the concept of conception. Conception: the start of a life, the start of a brand-new person. There, buried in the sexual reproduction equipment of a beautiful and deeply evil human being, one small thing clung to life—and gradually formed, gradually differentiated. Right now it was there. A future person. Not quite even a human yet. Just a living thing, clutching to existence. Fighting
to be.

The Ragman was looking a Watly with a puzzled expression. “This hostage thing is part of her plan?” he asked, and sat down next to a stack
of leafs.

“This was her insurance,” Watly answered. “She probably planned the timing of the murder around her most fertile moments. Hell—” Watly ran his hand up the middle of his brow, “It’s why she picked
me
to start with. She knows I won’t touch her now. I know the whole story but I still won’t touch her. I make a move against her and she can threaten to abort. She
will
abort. This woman—you don’t know her—she could stab herself in the womb just
for spite.”

“And if you don’t make a move?” Alysess asked quietly. She was seated at a keyboard station, looking somewhat daunted by Watly’s long and complicated tale. She also looked distinctly pissed
at him.

“If I don’t finger her, and if, within the term of her pregnancy, I turn myself in and confess.
..
she promises to raise the child and let the
child live.”

The
Ragman laughed.

“And you believe her?” Alysess said, looking pained for him, but at the same time gritting her teeth
with anger.

Watly inhaled deeply “No. I don’t believe her.” He took a few steps toward a display of antique chromells. “But I don’t know what to do. She has me. I was chosen for this reason. She knows me. She took the chip pistol right out of my hand. Just like that. But first she kept it pointed at her belly, saying, ‘Shoot me, Watly. Shoot me in the baby.’ That’s how she kept saying it: ‘Go ahead—shoot me in the baby. In the baby. Do it.’ But I couldn’t. I couldn’t and she took the gun from me. She just took it and told me to leave. I don’t know why she didn’t kill me right there. I guess she didn’t want the attention. Rather leave me for the cops. ‘Mea culpa, Watly Caiper,’ she kept saying. And I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t. She planned it that way. She hand picked me for this insurance. Because of who I am.” Watly felt his shoulders slump involuntarily. “There is a fetus growing inside her that is.
..
part mine. Part my genes. And I—I want to be a mother. All my life I want to be a mother.” Watly looked down at
his feet.

The Ragman shook his head. “Being a mother means raising a child. Being a mother means mothering. Being a mother has nothing to do with genes. Being a mother has nothing to do with conception or whose chromosomes
create the—”

“I
know
that. Don’t you think I know that? But Sentiva knew it would still be enough to snare me. She knew it would trap me. It’s my weak point.” Watly felt his eyes watering. “There is a future
baby
in her. From
my
sperm. A baby growing. Part
mine
. Don’t you understand?
A baby!”

“It’s not a baby, Watly. It’s a terradamn
embryo
,” Alysess said. “You’re going to let something that’s not even a raping
fetus
yet control you?” She looked off disgustedly. “And if you turn yourself in and you are then happily executed and she raises this child.
..
who will be the mother then? Sentiva! Is that okay with you? Is that what you want? And what kind of person would that child grow into with that
thing
to
raise it?”

“I know, I know! But what am I supposed to do? I don’t want her to abort.” Watly turned to face Alysess squarely. She turned toward him and he looked into her eyes. “At this point, it’s as close as I’ll ever come to getting my dream, and she knows it. It’s all I’ve got now. I know it’s silly, but it’s all I’ve got. My only shot at pass-along.
She knows it.
She always knew it. She’s dangling it over
my head.”

Alysess looked furious but she spoke very softly. “So you’re giving up. One raping embryo inside the rotting womb of a monster stops
Watly cold.”

The Ragman leaned back and folded his arms. Tavis was nowhere around. Watly thought the short-bearded man looked naked without his painted sidekick. Perhaps the Ragman had located a fade-out earlier and Tavis was out “having an evening.” Anyway, it was a welcome absence. The androgynous one made Watly nervous. “I’m not giving up,” Watly said. “Did I
say
I was
giving up?”

“You sure as rape
sound
like you’re giving up,” Alysess
answered heatedly.

“Aren’t I allowed to express the fact that I’m upset without you saying I’m giving up? I’m just upset, okay? I’m not having a very good day. I haven’t had a very good
month
, for that matter. I’m
upset
. I am
not
giving up. What I’m doing—” Watly sniffed, “is trying to come up with a plan. I would
welcome
any suggestions instead of criticism.” He turned toward the door. From the corner of his eye he could see Alysess glaring
at him.

The Ragman raised his hand, his face serious. Behind his intense eyes, Watly could almost see the thoughts brewing. “Sentiva cannot be blackmailed by you—made to.
..
do something.
..
to do something in our favor—now that you know she was
the donor?”

“How can I blackmail her? She has
me
. First of all, the world thinks I did it—I have no proof—and second of all, she’s holding the embryo as
a hostage.”

“Calm down a second, my child. Let’s think, now.” The Ragman looked down the banks of keyboards and long rows of CVs that filled the room. Watly followed his gaze. In the distant corners a few people were quietly sitting at their stations doing research. The low pinlights over their heads shone brighter than the others. CV mist made the room look soft and foggy. Watly wondered if the guy with the high forehead and crooked nose was anywhere around. It would be nice to talk to him now. To talk about P-pajer.

“What if someone else blackmailed her?” the Subkeeper asked, his eyes still focused at the far end of
the room.

“Who the hell—this is pointless.” Watly spun back toward the door and started to
walk out.

“Does she know Oldyer is dead, my child?” the Ragman asked, bending forward slightly and bringing his gaze back to those
near him.

Watly stopped. “Huh?” He turned back toward the
other two.

“Does Sentiva know Dr. Mitterly
killed Oldyer?”

Watly thought about it. His brain felt sluggish. “I assume,” he said finally, “that Mitterly was on his way to tell Sentiva about it when.
..
when I killed him.” The words didn’t want to come out. Particularly not in front of Alysess.
All right, so I’m a raping murderer. So?

“Then Sentiva doesn’t know the fat man is dead.” The Subkeeper smiled. He seemed to be enjoying himself. This was a game
to him.

Watly shrugged. “No, I
guess not.”

“But she may know he was becoming a troublemaker—asking for more money, and all?” The Subkeeper’s eyes were starting to sparkle almost as much as
his clothing.

Watly squinted at him. “
She may.”

“There you have it,
my children.”

Watly and Alysess looked at each other. The tension between them had lessened. The anger had passed, replaced
by curiosity.

“There we have
what
?”
Alysess asked.

“Think, my children. You never use your heads. A plan.
A
plan
.”

Watly stepped closer to the Subkeeper. “What’s
the plan?”

The Ragman took a deep breath. “A few days from now, Sentiva walks into a police station and confesses—in detail—to everything. Just like that. The hosting, the murder, the conspiracy, the conception of the fetal hostage—
everything
. She turns herself in. You surface shortly thereafter and tell the rest of the story. You are off the hook. The charges are dropped. Meanwhile, Sentiva has already changed her mind about the confession—tried to retract it, deny it—but by now it’s too late for her to take it all back. Nobody buys her suddenly reneging. And now she’s under constant protective restraint—originally her
own
suggestion. Originally from her
own
mouth. This physical restraint and monitoring lasts right up to the birth of her child. After some legal shenanigans, the state awards the infant to you—partly out of your qualifications and partly out of something I like to call ‘official guilt.’
Sound good?”

“It sounds—” Watly sat down on a stool across from the small bearded man, “with all due respect, Subkeeper, it sounds like a raping
Jesusland fantasy.”

“No, no. A
plan
, not a fantasy, my child.” The Ragman’s eyes
showed amusement.

“I don’t see it,”
Alysess said.

“
Now
I understand,” the Ragman said broadly, “why you two needed our help so badly. You’re both a
bit beanheaded.”

Watly tried not to get defensive. He realized how much the Ragman liked to play teacher. “Why would Sentiva confess? Your scenario still makes no sense
to me.”

Alysess joined in: “Yes, it’s a wonderful story, and all —”

“Because, my little slow-thinking fugitives, you turn the tables on her. Take the ball. Give our delightful donor friend a taste of her
own medicine.”

Watly flopped both hands in his lap, frustrated. “I still don’t
see how—”

“It’s time, don’t you see,” the Subkeeper interrupted with a wink, “for Sentiva Alvedine to do a little involuntary hosting herself.”