The Conformity (11 page)

The transport jumps a curb. The chassis rattles and the engine revs up, going into a higher gear. In the transport bed, Jack, Tap, and I slide on our asses as the vehicle wallows about. I'm thankful when it slides to a stop without tossing one of us from the bed.

I'm having a hard time feeling my hands. Pushing myself into a standing position is painful, and all my currently unincorporated flesh has become crotchety and stiff with the frigid temperature.

The transport is on a snowy, flat area in front of a double ring of razor-wired chain-link fencing—obviously a field kept clear due to security reasons. Beyond the fence I can see piles of dirty snow and the black of tarmac, rows of Quonset huts in the distance. There's a dull green plane—a C-130—sitting on the vast expanse of the runway.

The collective moaning of the Conformity soldier sounds above the rumbling of the truck and behind us, behind us in Bozeman, I hear the crash and crumble of buildings, the snapping of high-tension wires like guitar-strings. The thunder of explosions. It's coming. It's near.

You might want to vacate the bed,
Davies says,
because I'm going right through that fence.

Tap and Jack don't have to be told twice. They launch themselves into the sky like rockets. Once I dip my toes in the ether, out of the constant stress and din of the meatspace world, I rise up.

The transport grinds into gear and then barrels off toward the tarmac. It's moving fast when it hits the fencing, tearing through and bouncing down a drainage gulley and up the other side, slewing sideways in the snow.

Turning, I see the soldier is visible now. It has lost more mass—more people dead—as it wades through the trees and houses, gibbering and bellowing. A few people rise into the air to meet it. It's swelling its ranks again, adding to its mass. It screams, it wails.

JOIN US. SERVE US. WORSHIP US.

Time to stop dicking around. From above, everything below forms squares, rectangles of muted colors, browns, grays. It's a drab existence humans live when seen from a bird's-eye view. I fly away from the soldier, over the white earth, the gray rectangles of parking, the long brown building, the arrayed crosses of planes. The airport is strangely undamaged, but most air travel has been over for weeks.

I fly over the tarmac; it looks like a particularly evil skid-mark on the grimy underwear of the snow-gray runway area, scraped clean by plows. The ass-end of the C-130 is open, the transport parked nearby. Casey and the rest of the Irregulars spill out of the vehicle. Negata moves like a ghost, and I realize, because I haven't been in contact with him—he isn't part of the collective mind of our group—I had forgotten he was with us. And maybe that is his ability. Maybe that's what he wants me to learn. How to be forgettable.

The Conformity soldier bellows, moans. More cracking and snapping of wires. In the distance, past the snowy tracks of the transport, past the ruptured chain-link fence through which we came, beyond the fields, the tree line splits and the soldier thunders into view. It steams and drips.

It's here,
I say to all concerned.
Get on the plane.

I land in the transport bed, next to the extranatural bomb.

Come on,
Jack cries. Casey, Danielle, Bernard, and the rest are inside the plane now, and its props begin buzzing, a thick, unbearably loud basso rumble, blotting out the soldier's weird ululations.

Go!
I send, broadcasting a quick image of the C-130 lifting off.
I have to trigger the bomb. We need the time.

We're not leaving without you,
Casey says.

I can fly, remember? Just open the cargo doors once you're up.

The Conformity soldier changes again. The thing loses shape, condensing back into the grotesque huge floating ball of flesh.

Uh, it's flying now, man,
Bernard sends.
You best get your ass on board.

I pop open the hatch to the bomb, make sure the genome is firmly in place and not damaged, and press the button. The pink fluid drains into the black box, and I can feel some sort of ozonic field, like the Helmholtz but more intense. Like feedback from radio, at first it's just static, white noise, but it grows.

Come on, idiot!
Tap sends in the equivalent of a psychic shout.

I lift off the troop bed, glancing toward the Conformity. It's hovering over the fence now, thundering. For an instant I have the impression of thousands of grimacing mouths, thousands of eyes drawn into expressions of rage. The thing is pissed off, and now it's broadcasting it.

The plane is pulling away, moving fast, the screws of the props hauling it through the air, and I follow, not as fast. I'm numb, my body buffeted by wind so cold it's hard to breathe.

The plane screams as it ascends, and the Conformity swells and rises to meet it.

There's a great squelch of static in the ether, the detonation of the bomb. It's like an invisible grenade. It's the coagulation of ether into amber, a thick viscous impenetrable solution. And I am caught inside of it.

I know no more.

I can't tell if I'm dead yet.

My head's full of wind, a howling cacophonous torrent. I'm falling but not toward the ground. My clothes are ripped and ruffling violently. I'm hanging in the air, even though I've been unconscious.

My God, Shreve, wake up! I can't hold on anymore!

Casey. Above me, the ass end of the C-130 is open, the Irregulars huddled inside.

She's got me in the palm of her invisible hand. Her arm has grown long, indeed.

It hasn't been much time, a minute or two. Looking behind me, I can see the airport rapidly retreating from view, and the Conformity hanging in the air, motionless.

Thank you, Hollis. Thank you, my friend.

You are a hero. You saved us.

I go into the ether again, dangling on an invisible thread. There are strange echoes and vibrations there, in the space-not-space of the shibboleth
world. I can only think that it's because of the detonation of the extranatural bomb, but there's something more.

I don't have time to investigate. The wind is brutal, we're traveling so fast, like swimming in a pressure-washer stream. I feel as though my face will be peeled away from my skull at any moment, leaving my skull slicked with blood, the flesh of my face and cranium flapping behind me like a grotesque hoodie. Until the moment I get inside the plane's cargo hold the sensation increases and then … cessation of wind.

I might be deaf now. I can hear nothing.

It's moving again!
Danielle sends, urgent and terrified.
It's moving fast.

I'd spin the plane into a tizzy if it could hear my beats, Dani,
Bernard sends.

An idea prickles in the back of my mind.

Can you spin a slow beat? Make the Conformity slow down?

Don't know,
he says in my mind, very slowly. From where we stand at the back of the cargo hold, the mesh webbing ruffling with the suck of our passage and the howl and buzz of the propellers, it's easier for us all to go into our shared headspace—to blot out the overwhelming sensations from the real world.
I need some contact with it. Eye contact, you know, always worked before. But that was with people. Real folks, not that—

He stops. The plane is really ascending, at thirty-five, forty-degrees, and it feels like we're going straight up in the air because the back cargo door shows no view of sky, no hint of blue. All we see is a bird's eye view of the snow-covered mountaintops and dark green forested ravines of the Rocky Mountains.

We hit a spot of turbulence, and I'm nearly thrown from the plane. I scuttle over to the nylon webbing where Ember, Jack, and the rest of the Irregulars have latched on, white-knuckled. Casey stands free, no doubt holding on to a bulkhead with her invisible arm.

I can help you, Bernard. I can get its attention.

Radio silence.

Eventually,
he sends.
Don't know if I want that damned thing peeping me, you know?

I'm about to argue, but the plane levels out and the cargo hold begins to close. I don't want to lose sight of the Conformity, but when the hatch shuts all the way, the cessation of noise other than the muted thrumming of the props is like a balm. I'm beginning to be able to think again.

“Why'd the pilot shut the door?” I ask, using my real voice. In the still air of the cabin, I'm beginning to realize how cold I am. My hands are almost blue, and my teeth begin chattering uncontrollably. Shivers rack my body.

“You look like frozen cat shit, Shreve,” Tap says, and he takes off his jacket and throws it at me. It's so warm to the touch, it almost scalds me. I pull it over me, half lying on the mesh and curvature of the airplane's bulkhead. Exhaustion washes over me.

“We're picking up speed,” Davies says, and I realize that must be true, now that the cargo hold door is shut. “I'll go talk with the pilot, see what's up.”

I close my eyes.

I must have passed out, because when I wake, I feel warm all over. Jackets cover me and there's an arm thrown over my chest and someone delightfully soft fully pressed along the side of my body.

Don't get any ideas, Shreve,
Casey says in my mind.

About what?

She ignores that.
You were freezing. We worried that you were going into hypothermia. We had to heat you up somehow and body heat was the best bet. We drew straws and Bernard lost.

So Bernard and I spooned, and I wasn't awake to enjoy it?

I get a mental snort of mirth from her.
He refused, and you looked like you were going to die.

So …

So, I saved your ass again, boy-o.

Thanks.
A thought occurs to me. I start, halfway sitting up. She pulls me back.

The Conformity?

“Still coming,” Ember says, and I notice she's standing by us. I can't help but wonder if she's been eavesdropping on our conversation. The walls are breaking down, and sometimes, when I close my eyes, I find myself dislocated for just an instant, looking out from someone else's eyes.

Jack clears his throat. “It's following, but with the hatch door closed, we're outpacing it for the time being.”

We can get to Oregon, maybe, before the fuel runs out. The pilot is pushing the plane as hard as he can,
Davies says, and I get a long look at the cockpit through his eyes. The pilot, a lean, pockmarked little man with oversized hands and bright green eyes, sits near him, wearing a flight suit. He's talking, flipping switches and tapping gauges. Then the image is gone and I'm back among the Irregulars. And Negata. He's sitting quietly by the bulkhead door, buckled in, eyes closed. He seems perfectly at rest, unfazed by everything that's occurred.

“How long was I out?” I ask.

“Twenty, thirty minutes,” Tap says. “Napping on the job.”

“Nice. Thanks for the jacket,” I say, and I mean it. I don't really like Tap, and he doesn't really like me. And that's fine. Not every meal has to be delicious. Not every person has to be my friend. But I respect him.

There's something happening here, and I need time to figure it out. All I want to do is lie here, bask in Casey's warmth, away from wind and cold. But I have to look. On the etheric heights we fly when I open myself up to the shibboleth world overlaid upon ours. And there, the darkness is pinpricked with thousands of clustered lights, following, over the dark fields and spaces.

JOIN US,
it says in one voice.
ALL IS ONE. WE/I WILL BE WORSHIPPED AND SET IN THE HEAVENS AS A STAR.

The force of its scrutiny is like a tether drawing me to it. All of its telepathic power is focused on me, and I can feel the vast expanses of its experience, its malevolence, its disregard for life or love or light yawning before me like the abyss. And that is what it is—the apotheosis of nothingness, the essence of oblivion.