The Anathema (59 page)

“The Rosicrucian?” Gaul asked contemptuously, carefully tipping the dipper so that the water poured into the half-full bottle. “Really, John. Your flair for the dramatic is getting the best of you.”

“I told you, it was a joke, a joke meant for you,” John protested, holding up his hands. “It’s not like I actually make people call me that.”

“So you found things at the Outer Dark. Language, technology – but no nanites? No Source Well of your own?”

John hesitated for a moment before his smile returned.

“I wouldn’t be here otherwise,” John admitted. “It’s really the only thing we lack. With this, I can complete my experiments, and build an army that you will not be able to stop. You know that, right, Gaul? When I return, there will be no fighting the Anathema.”

“Looks to me like we did alright,” Gaul said, continuing to fill the bottle. “If it wasn’t for Alistair’s treachery, you might have been defeated entirely. Your people didn’t hold up very well against the Auditors.”

“Don’t be a fool,” John said, laughing. “Only young Leigh was one of my creations. And if Mitsuru Aoki is your queen, old friend, then she just stalemated with one of my pawns. Unless you have a better piece hidden somewhere, just waiting for the right moment to place it on the board, hmm?”

“Maybe,” Gaul said, shrugging.

“Tell me then,” John encouraged. “Who would you have stand against me? Your chief Auditor is mine, Rebecca Levy is paralyzed until I say otherwise, and whatever promise Mitsuru Aoki showed decades ago, you have squandered it. Whom else would you look to? Surely not to that abomination the Martynova clan has produced, Anastasia? You know as well as I do that whatever the secret of her protocol, that it is deviant. She belongs with us, not you. Or, perhaps, your hopes rest on the narrow shoulders of one Alexander Warner?”

“You ask a lot of questions, John.  You always did.”

“You can’t really expect to make an Auditor of the boy before I return,” John said forcefully, “and who is to say, old friend, that I won’t be able to take him from you before then?”

“Leigh is impressive,” Gaul admitted, still bent over the well. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to leave her at the Academy for proper instruction?”

John’s robust laughter echoed through the small stone room.

“Perhaps not this time. When I return, though, we can talk again, once some changes are made to Central and to the Academy. Besides, are you really so eager to harbor your enemies? How can you continue to allow Alice Gallow to remain an Auditor, when you know how badly I have compromised her? Would you like to know the truth about her, Gaul? What she really is?”

“Here,” Gaul said curtly, shoving the bottle in his direction. “I know. I’ve always known. But Alice belongs here.”

“If you say so,” John said, clutching the bottle eagerly. “Though I personally try not to clasp adders to my bosom.”

John walked out of the doorway, staring at the bottle, and Gaul followed him closely.

“Now for your part,” Gaul said stiffly. “Give the command. Pull your people out of Central, and release mine.”

John disappeared the bottle into the folds of his robe, and then turned to grin at Gaul.

“Are you even precognitive anymore, Gaul? Why would I do something like that? I will be taking your people back to the Outer Dark. We need test subjects. Surely, you must have suspected something like this would happen.”

“Of course,” Gaul said sourly. “But I had to play for time, until Rebecca was ready.”

The worry on John’s face disappeared quickly, but for Gaul, it made the whole day a little bit more worthwhile.

Alex stood in the hallway for quite a while, hoping that she would hear him shifting his feet and clearing his throat, and invite him inside, or at least open the door. She didn’t do any of that. Eventually, he resorted to knocking.

“Come in,” she said, so fast that he became certain that she had known he was standing there. He steeled himself, wiped the sweat from his palms on his jeans, and then opened the door and went inside.

“Sorry,” she said, barely looking up from the computer she slouched in front of. “I would have cleaned if I had known you were coming.”

Alex glanced around the room, finding it the same as the last time he had seen it. Piles of electronics, discarded packaging, and loose pieces of paper mixed with wrinkled t-shirts and balled up knee socks. One narrow path leading from the door to the computers stacked on her desk, and a second, even thinner path leading to her bed. He stood just inside the door, while Eerie continued to tap away at her keyboard. She didn’t make an effort to acknowledge him.

“So… uh, are you… are you okay?” Alex asked, desperate to break the silence.

“Yes,” Eerie hummed to herself, “and you?”

“Up and down,” Alex said helplessly. “Um. Did you see that thing, outside?”

“Oh, you mean your fight with my eight-year old housemate, Sebastian? I did see that.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, scratching his arm and shifting uncomfortably. “So, is he going to be… okay?”

“I think so,” Eerie said, frowning at her display. “He’s not used to being punched by people twice his size, that’s all.”

“Hey, he started it.”

Eerie didn’t say anything.

“He tried to set me on fire!” Alex pleaded, holding the arms of his scorched sweatshirt for examination. Eerie remained silent, keying commands into the keyboard in her lap, never even looking up at him while he fidgeted. Her display, from Alex’s angle, appeared to show nothing but fields of scrolling numbers.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt him or anything. It’s just that people have been trying to kill me all day, and I sort of thought that I was still being attacked by them, and…”

“Alex,” Eerie interrupted, “what are you doing here?”

“Damn it, Eerie,” Alex swore softly, “I came to make sure you were okay.”

“Oh?” Eerie asked, still glued to her display.

“Yeah,” Alex affirmed, slumping down against the wall and crouching there. “I figured that if I showed up and saved you from the bad guys all cool-like that you might, I don’t know, forgive me.”

“For what?”

“For all the shit I pulled,” Alex said, surprised how angry he was with himself. “With Emily, over Break, the stuff that I said before it. All of it.”

“And you came to save me?”

“Yeah.”

“I see,” Eerie said, finally turning to face him, her expression blank. “But I don’t need saving.”

“Yeah, clearly,” Alex said, shrugging. “I was worried about you, though.”

“I see,” she repeated flatly.

The silence stretched out while Alex squirmed.

“Eerie. Can I do anything to make this better?”

Eerie finally put down the keyboard and turned so that she was facing him, her hands sitting neatly on her long grey skirt. She’d changed her hair again, he noticed – the blond streaks were gone, replaced with a varying blue tint. It looked good, he thought, but he didn’t think this was the time to point it out.

“Tell the truth,” Eerie suggested. “Alex, are you here because you lost Emily?”

He thought about it for a minute. He figured she deserved that much.

“No,” he said finally. “I’m here because I am afraid that I’ve lost you.”

Eerie sat still for a moment, and then she looked away, her face, as always, unreadable.

“You are upset with me,” Alex said, sighing and standing up. “I’ll go. Just let me know if you change…”

“Alex,” Eerie said softly, cutting him off. “Why do you think I’m upset?”

Alex considered this for a moment, frozen in the act of standing, wondering if it was some kind of trick question.

“Because of Emily,” he said hesitantly. “Because I went on break with her…”

Eerie shook her head emphatically.

“No?”

She shook her head again.

“Okay,” he said, spreading his hands, “then why?”

“Alex is stupid,” Eerie muttered. “You really don’t get it?”

Alex shook his head. He was genuinely puzzled. All he could think was that Anastasia or Katya had gone back on their word, and told Eerie the whole story of the events of the break.

“No,” Alex said, trying to purge his mind of the memory of the weight of Emily on top of him.

“Do you know what I have to do tomorrow? Did you think about that at all?”

Alex shook his head again, his eyes on the floor, unable to face Eerie. He could feel his cheeks burning. He hadn’t so much forgotten about Margot’s impending funeral as much as he had deliberately forgotten about it, unable to fully comprehend the idea. It hadn’t occurred to him until that moment how callous he was being.

“Do you even care?”

Alex kept his eyes on the disarray on the floor. He fought down an insane urge to start crying, out of exhaustion, out of self-pity, in the hopes that it might make Eerie feel guilty and relent. However, he didn’t want to embarrass himself like that, and anyway, Eerie deserved better after everything that he had done.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said, his hands balled into fists. “I’m broken up about Margot, too. This is all new to me. Really, I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. He worked up his courage, remembering Windsor’s odd reaction, the night of the attack, and asked the question. “Eerie… did – did something happen over break? To you, I mean. Something bad?”

She didn’t answer.

“I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it, it’s cool, I don’t want to make you or anything, but I was really worried, the whole time, and if you hadn’t made me this thing, this cushion thing, I think I’d probably be dead right now, and as soon as I could, I came here to…”

He trailed off when he realized she had started typing again.

“I’m sorry, Eerie,” he said quietly, cursing himself.

“No, it’s okay,” she said, staring again at her display. “I understand.”

“No, you got it all wrong. I came here to tell you…”

Eerie shook her head.

“Not right now, Alex,” she insisted. “I have things to think about. And I think you should go.”

Alex felt cold. Suddenly, unaccountably cold. He managed to nod at the back of her head, and for some reason, he was smiling while he did it, some sort of automatic social reflex. His whole mind had gone numb on him, as if he had an injection of Lidocaine.

“Okay. Alright, I will go,” he said, reaching for the doorknob. “But when you get it figured out, please give me another chance. Because, I promise you Eerie, my mind is made up.”

The pillow she threw missed by a mile, but it still made him jump. When he turned back to face her, there were tears running down her cheeks, and her eyes blazed with an anger he had never seen before.

“It’s not all about you!” She howled, her voice catching.

“Eerie…”

“Just go! Just… just go away.”

He stood there, looking contrite, hoping she would take pity on him, and hoping she would forgive him. Eventually, he realized that she wasn’t going to, and he bowed his head, sighed, and then he let himself out quietly. She kept herself in front of her computer, pounding out code so fast that she was sure she would have to redo all of it later, until well after she heard the front door close behind him, until she was sure that she wouldn’t go to the window to see if he was still out there.