The Conformity (23 page)

“I had grown too large,” he says, and looks from me to Negata. “Inside. At all times there was … a congress in my head. And I needed to lock it all away. So that the Conformity can't see me.”

For an instant, there's a flash—one of those disjointed images we get from sharing minds, being one with each other—I see a hall, an infinite hall stretching away into the distance, but it's not a hall, it's a cellblock with many doors, each one with bars, and Shreve leading thousands of people into individual cells and locking them away. It's just a single moment and then it's gone and I'm not even sure I experienced it in the first place.

Shreve pats my knee. “It's hard to explain. But now I'm just me for the first time in a long time. And I have to stay that way. Otherwise …”

Negata, his voice soft, says, “The entity will come for you. It's drawn to power. But it's more drawn to the collective, isn't it? The joining of minds is a challenge, yes?”

Shreve looks at him. His eyes are as clear as I've ever seen them. “Yes. I have to stay just me and nothing else. If I do, it won't be able to see me.” He grins. “As long as I'm incarcerado
here
—
” He taps his chest with an index finger. “It won't know where I am.”

He's too quiet. He looks to the dark window and then to the ceiling and then into the fire, smoldering.

“Until it's too late,” he adds finally. Then: “It's time to go.”

twenty-four

JACK

“Don't move. I
will
shoot you,” the voice says.

The woman from the clinic—we never even got her name—

I feel a hand nesting in my hair, jerking my head up and back and wrenching my neck horribly. The Gulch woman's straddling me, with some sort of long knife—or a letter opener?—in her already bloodied fist.

“I don't think so, Madelyn. Unless you want me to poke some holes in this
abomination
.” Her voice, fruity and rapturous, blows in my face. Her breath smells like mint tea. I can feel the hard tip of the knife at my throat. My throbbing face, my eye, my broken nose, the agony of ropes cutting into my flesh, the ache in my muscles from the wheeling fall—all of those sensations dim and disappear, and all I can focus on is the sensation of that metal point on my throat and her minty, wholesome breath.

Madelyn clucks a little, like she's seen a kid fall and scrape his knee on her front walk. It's a sympathetic sound.

I wish I could see her. But Gulch fills my senses.

“Let these boys go. You have your church. You have your god now. Let them go.”

Gulch blinks and says, “No. They have a use. We shall call the All-Seeing here, to us.” It takes a moment for what she's saying to sink in. “And then—”

She got in, Jack,
Tap says. There's no attitude in his voice. No snark. Just pain and shame.
She got in and took what she wanted.

“And then we shall ascend.”

“Well, I've always known you were a loon, Miss Emily Ruth Gulch. You hid in your grandmother's house and had your prayer meetings with whoever'd listen to your nonsense, and that was just fine. But I'm taking those boys with me.”

I can feel the knife dig into my flesh. It's outrageous, the feeling of metal entering the body. Like the pain isn't enough. There has to be a violation too. For a moment I think about the Witch, Ilsa Moteff. Her in my mind. I'll choose the knife any day. But still, I cringe away from it. It makes me want. Want my mother I never knew. Want warmth and to be back at the campus. It makes me want Shreve.

God, I'm scared. And this woman will kill me. I can feel it in the strength of her fingers, the way she bludgeoned me. Her grip is like death.

I'm scared.

“No, Madelyn.” A smile crosses Gulch's features. It expands slowly until it stretches across her face like a pool of oil spreading. “We allowed you your clinic because I could find no use in killing you or dealing with the animals you harbor there. The All-Seeing God cares nothing about the dull beasts of the earth. But now—”

“Bullshit. You left me alone because I shot Simon through his torch-carrying hand when you all came to rout me out. You left me alone,” she says, fury in her voice, “because I fought back against your collective madness.”

“Madness?” Gulch actually sounds tickled. “The Godhead is proof that this is
no madness!
You saw it, did you not, before the electricity went away. It was on every station! The Godhead is real! The All-Seeing is real!”

“That is no god, woman. It's just something … something unexplainable.”

“Blasphemy.” Gulch shifts her weight, getting ready to plunge the metal into my neck. “I believe we're in a stalemate, then,” Gulch says. “Because I will kill this boy. And if you allow me one moment …” She closes her eyes, and I can see her eyeballs scanning in their sockets like someone deep in REM sleep.

Jack, I can hear her!
Tap sends.
She's calling her …

What? You can hear her?
I send back.

She's calling her “faithful”!

Gulch, whose face is so close to mine, snaps open her eyes once more.

“My Saved. Those who shall be gathered into the flesh of the Panopticon.” She chuckles. The smell of the woman on top of me is overpowering. “They are on their way.”

twenty-five

EMBER

Ghosts or no ghosts, they've got to be out of their goddamned minds to think that I'm going to go flying off to find that little liar who fucked with my head in the testing before I discover what's happened to Jack. Casey can whine about it all she wants, but I'm the super-duper in the sky and she's just the sap with the invisible arm.

Should have nabbed more blankets before taking off because it's cold here and it only takes moments before all of my body is numb. The only warm part of me is my mouth, chuffing moist air into the stale fabric of my improvised mask only to have it freeze moments later.

Eyes water and tear with the force of the wind and my speed. The land passes below me in dark, green-black waves like a sea, undulating.

Brought some armament, unlike Jack and Tap. Can feel the M14's strap cutting into my shoulder as I arc through the wintry sky. We might have got comfy-cozy sexy-wexy back at the lodge there for a while, but I never misplaced my rifle. It is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine. Or so Gramps used to say when he wasn't quoting the Bible at me.

From this great height there are a few fires visible in the overwhelming darkness below, and I'm tempted to fly down to them, just long enough to warm up, but more than likely that would end in gunfire or a witch hunt. The world's likely to get medieval pretty quick. Girls who can fly are going to be the first bitches the local yokels throw on the fire.

Maybe.

Boys with twelve fingers are probably fucked too.

Even in the darkness, I can see the wide expanse of the frozen lake—just like the map back at the lodge indicated—and I follow it south to McCall, where Jack and Tap said they were going. If they're anywhere, they'll be there.

Jack!
Yelling with your mind is like whispering as loud as you can.

Jack, are you there?

Yes.
It's faint. So very faint.
Shit, Ember. We're in trouble. Come quick.

On my way.
Pause only long enough to unsling the M14, shuck a round into the chamber.
Locked and loaded.

Airspeed is brutal. Feel like my nipples are going to freeze and shatter, along with my toes and fingers and nose and ears. All my pointy, sensitive parts. Never flown faster than I do now. The lake whips by below me. In the dim distance I see a shoreline growing in my sight. Some buildings.

They're holding us captive,
Jack sends, his voice stronger now.

Who is?
I ask.

Religious fanatics.

Oh, shit. Exactly what I was afraid of. Whenever things go south, the religious nuts go into overdrive. It's like they're taking notes from the Conformity. As it swells its numbers, gathering people into itself, so do the nutjobs. Maybe they've always been that way. Grandma could cook a mean apple pie, but when she got wind of my abilities, she was goddamned quick to call it the devil's work.

The town of McCall is below me now, trees whipping past, not very far below my feet. The squat, rectangular dark houses passing silently by.

They're holding us in a church. So look for a steeple or something like that.

I've found you,
I send.

What? How can you know? There's probably two or three churches in this town.

When I smile, my skin creaks and it actually hurts a little. The moisture of my breath has frozen on my skin. I raise the M14 and sight the ground below.
I'm pretty sure the church they've got you in is the one I'm looking at. The one surrounded by a mob holding torches.

twenty-six

TAP

The Gulch woman's on top of Jack doing a twenty-dollar lap-dance when Jack suddenly sends,
Ember's here!
The relief is palpable.

That's right, bitches,
Ember says in my mind.
I'm here to pull your asses out of the fire. Should I take these crazies out?

No!
Jack sends, powerfully.
Don't kill her followers. When I give the signal, shoot the windows.

All of them?

Unless you know which room we're in,
Jack responds.

There's only a couple of choices, really,
she says.
In position.

Gulch says, “Massey. Come here and cut this boy's ropes.” She tenses, and Jack moans a little. It looks like the knife she has is a good quarter inch in the meat of his neck. If it's not in the carotid already, it's a single push away from it. “Don't be stupid, Madelyn. I'm absolutely prepared to sacrifice the boy.” Another moan from Jack. “Hear that? He agrees with me.”

Madelyn doesn't say anything, and I don't either because I'm not quite up to the level of banter around here. Shreve would jump right in.

“We never really knew each other, did we, Ruth?”

The crazy woman says nothing in response.

“While you were inspecting the sanctity of your hymen or whatever you were doing in those prayer meetings at your grandmother's house, you know what I was doing?”

Gulch says, “They're almost here. My Saved. And then this will be over. Because I know how to call the Godhead of the Panopticon now.”

Massey quickly cuts Jack's feet and hands free. Gulch pulls him up into a half-standing position and wrenches his arm up behind his back, removing the knife from its place at Jack's neck only long enough for her to twist his body around to face Madelyn and the rifle.

“Move over toward the desk or I'll kill the boy. Massey!” She barks the name, and her voice is like the cracking of thunder. I don't know if that's her bugfuckery in action or she's just a natural commander, but even I feel like jumping to attention.

Madelyn, who I gotta say is growing on me, says, “Remember your manners, Ruth. You interrupted me.” Her voice is casual. Tinged with disappointment. “While you were praying, I was down at the target range.”

The sound of the rifle in the small room is eardrum-shattering. There's a flash and a fleeting afterimage of a bright point of fire and then Massey falls. His eye is vacant and bloody and the back of his head, even in the low light of the room, is a mess, slowly pumping blood onto the rug.

The bore of the rifle is unwavering. “Call off your people and let the boys come with me, and I'll let you go.”

“Too late,” Gulch says, and her eyes roll back in her head. Her feet leave the floor. Rising. Jack's rising with her, in her arms, and now I see that his eyes have rolled back too, showing only whites. “The All-Seeing comes …”

twenty-seven

EMBER

Hanging in the air near the boughs of a taller fir.
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall …

Even in darkness the training kicks in. Biggest weakness of being a flyer: there's no cover once you're in the air. Any of the pitchforks down there sees me and has a gun, well, it's aerial acrobatics and pure speed until I'm out of range. Or out of sight. Best to stay near the cover of the trees.

Jack, what's going on?
I send.
They're almost all in the church.

Track the torchbearers in my sights. It would be so easy just to slip my finger onto the cold metal of the trigger and …
squeeze.

And I'll do it. I will. And not give one damn.

Tap sends,
Something's happening! Oh shit!
Catch a panicked image from his mind of a woman, arms wrapped around Jack, her head turned upward toward the ceiling. Eyes rolled back in her skull. And Jack, his mouth open in a painful O of surprise or alarm. His eyes white.

Can feel an invisible wind tugging at me, pulling me down toward the church. The air, so cold, has become electric, full of energy, and when I blink I get tracers and afterimages of lightning in the darkness of my eyelid cinema. It's as if there's an electrical storm emanating from the center of the church.

Tap, what's going on?
Screaming now, silently, and I can feel that I've bitten the inside of my mouth. I realize my nose streams with blood—
again?—
and I feel a strong pull on my body, tugging on my pelvis, my gut. My center of gravity.

Like the earth has gained mass, becoming denser. Shrinking. A collapsing star. More gravity.
Pulling me.

A massive
CRACK
and something's happening with the structure of the church. The roof hitches with a great groaning of timbers and avalanches of snow falling away, revealing the roofing tiles that now flutter and rip as if the building itself was pregnant with a tornado.