The Conformity (21 page)

She's a damned natural, that's for sure. With each word her voice thrums and resonates with just the right quiver of emotion. Judging from the murmurs and shuffling feet, she's got the crowd now and she's working it.

Can you blast loose?
I ask Jack silently.

He gives a single shake of his head, so small I'd miss it if I wasn't sitting facing him.

Have you tried contacting Ember? Casey?

Of course, idiot. That's the first thing I did. They're out of range. Or we're not strong enough without Shreve as a signal booster.

Don't have to get shitty about it,
I say.
So, you can't blast loose?

I can blast out of here, sure, but the man said if I do anything he's gonna shoot you. And it won't be rock salt.

Yeah, your face is totally fucked up, man.

I should let him shoot you,
he says. Jack's kind of a trip: he's one of those kids you meet who's totally chill, just a regular dude hanging out, but there's that light switch inside of him and if it gets flipped he goes red-hot. Like habanero-up-the-ass red-hot. When he was blasting the Conformity soldier. And when he knocked out the back of the plane, it was … something. It was something.

If I can work my hand free …
I send.

Listen, can you fall over? Tip the chair?

Maybe. It's hard to feel my feet. But I might be able to shift my weight enough. Probably. Why?

If they make me stand or lift me up, you fall over, right? They know I can fly. They know we're different, and they're gonna question you about where we come from. The woman—

She's a bugfuck, right?

Yeah. Not a strong one, but maybe strong enough to get in your head …
Jack sends.

What are you saying? I'm weak?

Jack gives a silent, mental sigh and rolls his eyes.
Tap, she stopped you, remember? Don't know what she was doing, but she stopped you from running.

I don't say anything. He's right. Maybe.

She's gonna try to do that again. If they lift me up I can blast them, but you've got to be on the floor. Low as you can. Shreve and I have done this before.

The high and mighty Shreve. Giver of gifts. The taker of takes. But where is he now to save us? Right, unconscious back with the girls. I don't say any of that. Or send it telepathically. No point, really. But I can fall over. My right leg is tied more loosely than my left, and I think I can tip the chair up and over with my right foot with some leverage and rocking.

Yes. I can fall over.

Great. You see me get picked up or stand, do it. Because shortly after—

Boom.

That's right. Boom.

The praying goes on for a long time. I can't see anything except Jack and the section of the office that has the bookshelf and desk. We must be in a church, and the worship area is behind me.

The biblical chanting and quoting drones on, and like when my mom would make me sit through church, I find my attention drifting. The ropes at my wrists chafe and cut off my circulation. I can't seem to concentrate on the religious blather but, goddamn, it's just gobbledygook. At some point there's some nonsense sounds, like people saying, “oh conshalla non falla dalla was it talling conshalla” over and over again, and I hear yelps and strange vocalizations. But then everything quiets and the woman says, “Go, go from here, to your homes. To your children. Rejoin flesh of your flesh and blood of your blood and rejoice that soon you will be gathered to a greater flock. You will become one with the All-Seeing God and visit the fields and plains of the vaults of Heaven. You will know happiness. You will know being one with your maker. All praise the Panopticon!”

In chorus, the worshippers respond, “Praise the Panopticon,” and there's some serious brainwash fervor going on in their voices.

Then silence except for shuffling. The sound of a push-handle on a door. Then footfalls echoing in a larger space, coming closer. Then silence.

Someone else is in the room. You can feel the change now, like you know when someone—your sister or brother—is behind you. Jack's eyes go to something behind me, and then a woman comes into view and stands, looking at us.

She's not an ugly woman. She's not pretty either. She's sweating some now, and her hair is wet at the temples and she's got it pulled back, away from her face. With the fruitiness of her voice, I thought she might be fat but I don't know why I thought that. She looks like she's very fit but not muscular. She wears frumpy mom-jeans and a turtleneck sweater. Hiking boots. No makeup and no jewelry. She looks like she's just returned from a strenuous hike.

“My name is Ruth Gulch,” she says, moving to half sit on the edge of the desk. “And you two are different.” She lets that sink in some before continuing. She crosses her arms. Stares at us.

“How did you destroy the wall of the library?” she says, her voice suddenly powerful, a whipcrack. It's like I
need
to answer her. But Jack says in my head,
Shut up, idiot.
And I don't.

She looks at me, then over at Jack, and purses her lips. “Why are you in McCall? Why are you here, skulking about in our library?”

She begins tapping her fingers on her arm, and I notice a strange little scar on her pinkie, silver and puckered.

Check her hands, Jack. Looks like she's chopped off her extra fingers.

Jack's gaze moves toward her hands, registering the scar, and then back to her face.

“To get warm,” Jack says.

“Where did you come from?”

“Devil's Throne. A lodge there.”

“And how did you get here? Horseback?”

A pause. “We walked.”

“You're lying.” She looks at the man standing behind me. “Massey, get Bildings to fetch some firewood and shut the door, if you would, please. Now that our congregation has gone, the temperature is seriously dropping. We could use the heat.” The big, bearded man with the shotgun grunts in assent.

Gulch moves behind her desk to sit in the big leather swivel chair there and then rolls it over to the small fireplace grate. The interior of the office looks like what I'd think of for some Irish priest's office, cozy, lined in dark stained wood and leather-bound books, a picture window looking out on firs and frozen windswept lake. Real Old World shit. On the walls I can see the less-weathered places on the wood where pictures used to hang. And there, the shadow where a crucifix once was pinned.

I'm not looking forward to finding out how far the crazy goes.

Gulch rustles behind her desk, face in the fireplace grate. I can hear the sound of small blocks of wood. She's fiddling with kindling. The heavy footfalls of Massey and Bildings sound, and eventually they come into view bearing armfuls of icy wood that they delicately place near the fireplace. Massey—or is it Bildings—grunts and squats on his hams, ducking out of sight beyond the desk, but I hear the telltale sounds of fire making—the hollow clatter of kindling, the mess of wrinkled newsprint, the hollow
thock
s of logs being placed. Then there's yellow-orange light flickering in the dark room. Wouldn't mind if they burned their goddamned eyebrows off.

It's silent for a long while except for the crackling of tinder and paper, and the air fills with the aroma of woodsmoke. Jack, his face like raw meat, looks like a sausage held over a fire until the angry juices spit and hiss. I hope he doesn't blow before I'm on the floor.

Finally the temperature in the room rises—though not before Gulch bitches at Massey. “Keep that door shut, and draw the blinds! I can feel the cold pouring off the windows!” They brew some tea with a stovetop teapot they shove into the coals. It's so very comfy cozy here, three freaks with their teen prisoners. The ropes have probably turned my hands purple.

Gulch, after she's had some tea and snacked on a granola bar, returns her focus to us. This has all been a show. She crosses her arms like a principal dealing with miscreant youths—which we are, I guess, but
fuck
her—and Bildings and Massey flank her like a godfather's bruisers, ready to deliver the beatdowns.

“All right, now that it's warm enough in here for higher thought and conversations, I'll ask again: Why are you here?”

Jack's gaze flickers over to me and back to her. “We're looking for a doctor for our friend.”

“Your friend? Who is your friend?”

“Does it matter? He's been hurt, and he needs a doctor.”

I can see the thought churning behind her plain features. The scary thing about this Gulch woman is that she doesn't look
scary
. Quincrux, that creepy dude Norman that ran with the Red Team, even Shreve—they're scary sometimes. She looks like anyone you might meet anywhere. At the grocery store. At the mall. At the soccer field. At church. Plain Jane, but crazy as shit.

She looks at Massey and Bildings and says, “Would you two excuse us for a moment?” When they're slow to respond, Gulch says, “I need to ask them some delicate questions, and maybe the sight of those two shotguns is tying their tongues.”

Massey glances at Bildings, and the larger, bearded one gives a barely perceptible shrug like
Who gives a shit? She's the boss,
and they tromp out—though they're careful to open the door quickly and shut it behind them just as fast. Still, the temperature drops considerably after they leave.

Gulch stands, moves to put her ass to the flames, warming her hands behind her back. “It's getting late, and I have lots to do tomorrow.”

“I bet the crazies take a lot of your energy, huh,” I offer. She looks at me, eyes narrowed.

She ignores that, but it has irritated her.

“Now that Massey and Billings have left, let's be honest.” She looks at Jack. “You, I can't pierce. And Billings says he saw you flying before he shot you. And there's the wall to the library you blew out. Clearly, you aren't normal.” She moves to stand behind the desk, placing her hands on the desktop, her face an intense study. “
You're like me.
Are you part of the Panopticon?”

“The Panopticon? You mean the Conform—” I begin, but Jack gives a telepathic shout of
No!

Gulch's lips purse. “You are in communication. I can't hear what you're saying, but I know something's being said.” She leans back, letting her plain, blunt hands fall to her sides. “I didn't want to do this—because, as you two probably know, it's painful for all of us involved, but I'm going to have to
take
the information I need.”

“No, you—” Jack says.

“Time for talking is over, whoever-you-are. As I said, I can't read you.” She inclines her head toward me. “But him, I can. And I'm going to get the whole story, one way or another.”

Once, when I was first recruited by the Director to join the Society, and they brought me onto the plane, they introduced me to him—he was so damn polite—and he sat there chatting with me, smoking (on the plane!), and there was this overwhelming sense of dislocation and otherness. Maybe I was outraged but it's hard to remember. It was only later, when I met some other bugfucks and could feel them scurrying around in my head, that I realized what was going on. Maybe that's why Shreve bugs the shit out of me. I don't know.

But it's pretty obvious what she's talking about.

“Wait. At least tell us why. Why are you doing all this?” Jack's voice is raw.

She looks surprised. “You mean the church? The parishioners? The All-Seeing God?”

“Yes. And questioning us. Holding us.”

“These are the end times, and I need to know what I'm supposed to do. To be pleasing in the sight of God. So that I may join with Him. And you have come here to tempt me. Us. To lead us astray.”

Jack shakes his head. “No. We don't care. But that thing … it's no second coming—”

“Do
not
blaspheme!” For a moment her face is contorted with fury. “You are abominations. There'll be no blaspheming in my presence.”

This woman seriously needs to get punted with a size-twelve steel-toe boot.

“We're sorry,” Jack says. “We're just trying to understand.”

“These are the end days. And the Godhead moves above us, collecting the Saved into His embrace. The Rapture.”

Jack's getting desperate. “But why the ‘Panopticon'?”

Gulch draws her hand to her mouth and stills, almost as if she's seen something terrifying. For a moment she's vulnerable. Almost sympathetic. She says in a quiet voice, “It watches me when I sleep. I have dreams.” She looks at Jack, and her eyes widen until the pupils are totally visible, ringed in white. “It watches me and watches me. I can feel it.” Her voice drops even lower. “Behind my eyes. It sees all.”