The Book of Apex: Volume 1 of Apex Magazine (13 page)

She took him by the chin and
held him up. “The Knitter saved me, Delauchen, not him. He was an ass anyway.
Besides, one good thing came of it.”

“What?” he asked, still looking
away.

“I met you.” She let go of him.
“Is that a bad thing?”

“We’re going to get hit soon,”
he said, trying to change the subject.

“Oh, come on. You don’t believe
that crap, do you?” Thalia twisted the bottom of each ration can to start the
heating process. “Imminent doom foreshadowed by the presence of a Knitter at
Dawn and all that? Plenty of times I’ve seen them and nothing has happened.”

Delauchen kept his mouth shut.
It wouldn’t do any good to say anything else. He could feel it happening in
him. That moment when you had to shut yourself off and go cold to the world
because someone was too close, too important.

He took a minute to consider
Thalia, snapping a heliotype into his mind. Where the long-dead-and-gone Yvette
Mobori had been olive in skin tone, Thalia Vetraslev was pale and red freckled.
His lost lover had thick auburn curls where Thalia had short blonde hair,
cropped close.

She smiled at him.

Smiles didn’t really mean
anything; Delauchen had seen too many fake ones over the years. And when they
started to mean something, as Thalia’s smile did at this instant, that was when
he started to shove them away.

She’s too close,
he realized. He didn’t
want to hurt her like he had Yvette.

“You know, the Brigades Invalid
might have—”

“Don’t,” Delauchen said. “Just,
don’t. Okay?” He shook his head.

 The Knitter’s locket bothered
him.

She probably threw it
away after we broke up and the Knitter found it,
he decided.

Thalia looked away, unaware of
what traipsed through Delauchen’s mind. She popped the top on a can of tea and
handed it to her partner. “Here. Drink. You’re depressing me.”

He reached for the steaming can
of tea and in so doing, made himself try, just one more time, to look her in
the eye. She watched him watching her, breathing deeply, looking down into her
when their eyes finally met. He held himself there in her mismatched red-blue eyes,
the fear and panic pulling at his guts.

Don’t push her away
, he told himself.
Don’t
quit just yet
.

She blushed. “You’re such a
grump. You’re lucky I love you, you know that?”

He nodded, hot can of tea in
hand. He brought it up to his lips.

There was a flash of light.

“COVER!” someone shouted. “TAKE
COV—!”

Lightning seared his eyes as a
hot thunderclap slapped them down into the mud. He struggled to pump air back
into his lungs, as he slid down into the shell hole. Rats streamed past him,
but one stopped to nibble at something, a bit of rag, muscle and fresh bone.

Delauchen could see Thalia
sprawled out not far from him, face down in the dirt. He tried to crawl toward
her, but he couldn’t move.

There was another burst of
light and something busted him in the face.

The darkness took him.

Delauchen opened his eyes to a
grey murk. Someone was screaming loud enough to pierce the remnant ringing in
his ears. A high-pitched mechanical whine obscured their screams until metal
bit into flesh and the whine dropped into a low moaning grind. It drove the
screams into the inhuman range.

Buzz saws,
Delauchen realized
.
Invalid Harvesters.

He blinked and turned his head.
He could smell a metallic tang mingled with the stench of putrid rotten flesh
close to his body. Sharp, burning jabs of pain pushed from his fingertips to
his biceps in both arms before degrading into a duller incarnation that
radiated through his shoulders and pushed deep into his neck before burrowing
into his skull. Someone kneaded the flesh around his biceps as if it were bread
dough.

He coughed and tried to clear
his dry throat. He was thirsty.

“Hello?” he croaked.

“Do you require a Limb Knitter
or do you wish to be inducted into the Brigades Invalid?” a toneless voice
asked.

He coughed again. “What?”

“Knitter or Harvester.” The
voice was insistent.

“Why...why can’t I see?”

“Frontist, your wounds are
treatable but I need a decision. Do you want a Knitter or not?”

“Limb Knitter? But...” This was
going too fast. “Wait, what about Thalia?”

“Frontist, I can’t spend any
more time on you. Either accept the Knitter or I’ll send for a Harvester.”

Thalia would chose a
Knitter
,
Delauchen told himself. She had done it once already.

“I’ll get a Harvester,
Frontist.”

“No, no, a Knitter,” Delauchen
shouted. “I’ll take the Limb Knitter.”

He couldn’t hear a response in
the growing scream of microturbines and metal-shod feet stomping closer. The
Invalid Harvester was coming. He’d be chopped up and dumped into one of those
drums, then hauled off to wherever it was that you went to become an Invalid
Warrior. A two-meter cybernetic zombie, the living electric death.

“I said I’ll take the Knitter!”

The
screaming turbines and footsteps faded away along with the buzz saws and
screams. He heard a door slam shut muffling the sounds completely, leaving him
with only the ringing in his ears. Delauchen thought he could hear heavy fabric
falling to the floor but he wasn’t certain.

“I’m here, Delauchen,” a voice
said. He could hear a rapid, frantic clicking sound. Something hairy took him
into its arms. The stench of rotten flesh was overpowering. “I have always been
here.”

Small points of cool, hard rods
touched his ribs, wrapping themselves down and around to embrace his torso.
Delauchen felt the rods tumbling him around; rolling him as hot, sticky
glue-like string plopped onto his ankles. The substance began to wind itself
around his shins, working up around his legs, pulling them tightly together. It
sweated a blood-warm fluid that filled the dead spaces around his legs as the
substance increased in speed, winding up to his torso. When it reached his
lower ribs, the substance pulled itself taut. The fluid advanced behind the
material, which caused Delauchen to break out into a cold, clammy sweat.

The rolling came to a stop.

Two of the coils, or rods,
Delauchen wasn’t sure, touched his arms. They rubbed themselves back and forth,
tugging at his skin.

Something bit him.

“Breathe, Delauchen,” the
Knitter shouted over his screams. “Breathe.”

He strained at the bindings in
a futile attempt to inflate his lungs. “I can’t.”

He felt the Limb Knitter’s
hands grasp his head. Strands of filament oozed from its fingers, creeping
their way across his skull. They pressed, shoved and rutted themselves into his
ears, under his eyelids and down his nose. Delauchen tried to speak but found
himself gagging on the advancing filaments that crawled through his sinuses and
invaded his throat. The sharp-toothed coils in his stumps continued to rut,
suck, pull and push into him.

“I’ll breathe for both of us,”
it said, and kissed him full on the mouth. He felt himself pulled upright
inside a powerful pair of legs locked behind the small of his back. The thing
mounted him when the mouth pulled away, causing him to vomit. A warm, wet cloth
cleaned the bile from his face.

“There will be a sharp pain,
and then it will pass,” it said.

He heard a crack at the base of
his skull, followed by something grinding against bone, penetrating deep into
his brain.

The darkness came for Delauchen
again.

Silver tones and dark shade
permeated the Kalentine Orchards, not far from the Canarus Redoubt’s Northern
Gate. Delauchen didn’t recall the walk on this visit, but he had been here
before with Yvette. Their last weekend together had been during the Fall
Harvest and they’d spent it camping out in the open and making love under the
star-splashed skies.

His presence at the Orchards
made him feel like an ass and it reminded him of why he hadn’t brought Thalia
here, even though he was close to doing the same thing to her. Yvette had never
suspected he was going to end it after that weekend.

Where
is Thalia?
He wouldn’t have come alone. It was too depressing.

Now in the springtime there
were abundant blossoms on the oldest apple tree that swayed in the afternoon
breeze. Two patched, careworn field blankets were spread out around the trunk
of the tree, its bark rubbed bare from campers over the decades. Someone had
sliced smoked cheddar, apples and some sausage on two tin mess plates. He
remembered the galvanized bucket in his hands, heavy with iced-down bottles of
hard cider. The sutler wagon down the trail sold them from the Orchard presses
to a Frontist for a modest discount.

He set the bucket down and took
a slice of cheddar from the nearest tin plate. When he stood up Delauchen
noticed a hapless Velaysian apple mite caught on a spider web. The spider moved
swiftly, immobilizing the mite with a bite and winding it up for supper later.

I don’t remember
planning this trip.
Delauchen
figured it must have been the cider, too much of it during the trip up, which
might explain the sludge in his head. He slid the slice of cheddar into his
mouth and sucked on it thoughtfully. Yvette and Delauchen had gorged themselves
on hard-to-get delicacies when they were here last time. The smoky, creamy
texture pulled up a painfully sharp and clear memory of the first of the final
kisses he shared with Yvette.

He swallowed the bit of cheese.
You’re a coward, Delauchen. You know that?

“Beautiful, aren’t they? The
blossoms that is,” a woman said from behind, her voice young, fruity, melodic
in tone. Familiar. “I’m glad we’re here to see them together.”

He froze.

Fingertips traced their way
around Delauchen’s shoulder, sending chills down his spine. He held his breath
as the woman’s hand circled around until she was face to face. Her auburn curls
spilled down over her shoulders, lush and thick. Sharp dimples flanked her
close mouthed smile.

Yvette?
Delauchen started to
breathe again, but didn’t trust himself to speak.

“I’ve found you.” Her smile
brightened. “Took you long enough to get the cider.”

She drew Delauchen into her
embrace. He found himself hugging her in return, his right hand located her
shoulder blade, his left still holding the bucket. She nuzzled against his
chest as his hand started to descend the solid, firm curve of her back. A hint
of lavender in her curls caught his attention while his hands came to a
wandering stop around her hips.

Fits like a glove
, Delauchen thought,
drawing her closer still.

“I’ve missed you,” he said.

Yvette drew back from him and
took a long look. He tried to meet her eyes but his own gaze darted off to rest
on sandals. Her toenails were painted with gold.

“Oh, I made you something. Sit
down and fetch me a cider while I find it,” she said, turning to her Forces Velaysia
issue canvas knapsack.

“Sure,” Delauchen said, and did
as he was told. On all fours, Yvette rooted around in her knapsack. His eyes
wandered to her butt and he found himself fascinated with the fact that he
could stare at her rear end all day but not look her in the eye. Thalia’s was
wider, bigger, softer, not the hard leanness of Yvette. He always had to bend
at the knees to hug or kiss Thalia. She never really felt right in a physical
sense.

He felt shallow and crass,
embarrassed and repulsed at his thoughts.

 Yvette handed him the
paper-wrapped parcel from her knapsack. She plopped down next to him, blew an
errant curl from her face and took the offered bottle of cider.

“Here it is,” she said, her
face in full blush. “Knitted it myself.”

Delauchen squeezed the package,
hefted it, then shook it. It was soft, light and noiseless.

“Open it, silly.”

He pulled at the twine to
unwrap the paper. There was a bundle of knitted red yarn, folded nicely and
neatly inside.

Delauchen smiled, turning the
sweater back and forth to get a good look. “You made this?

“That’s what I said. Try it
on.”

He rubbed
his fingertips back and forth on the fabric. It wasn’t wool or cotton. It was
sheer, warm, and he could swear it was throbbing
.

A nervous chuckle got away from
him. “Not exactly sweater weather.”

“Oh, humor me, babe.”

“Okay.”

He pulled the warm, sheer
material over his head and shoved his arms out through the sleeves. The cuffs
ended in the middle of Delauchen’s forearms. Waves of scalding hot pain washed
back and forth across his hands and arms, sucking and pulling at his finger
tips. He couldn’t move his arms at all. It hurt that badly.