The Malice (9 page)

Hooves flail.

Duet swears.

Vesper’s smile falls away.

There is a collision. Cries of alarm and pain mingle together. Water sloshes.

Vesper finds the kid in her arms, finds herself pitching backwards. Then Duet’s hand finds her collar, pulls her upright.

‘Thank you.’

The cylinder is built for comfort, for one. Vesper and Duet wriggle together, making what space they can. Fortunately, one is not full grown and the other’s armour is streamlined, built for speed. Even so, the sword is hard on Vesper’s back and the bag is crushed between them and contents press outward, sharp edges digging into hips and stomachs.

The kid turns round three times, then sits in the space beneath Vesper’s feet.

Without being asked, the cylinder begins to close. Hands and heads are tucked inside, hasty. With a sigh, the split sides of the cylinder meet, sealing instantly.

Tiny holes appear on the outer layer of the metal, greedily sucking in water, taking on weight and, with a sudden lurch, the cylinder drops beneath the surface.

The First reaches the end of the tunnel, stopping by the hole. It peers down, not needing a torch to penetrate the darkness.

There is nothing but water slapping the sides of the chamber below.

Others come from behind, hurrying through the network, their growing proximity comforting.

The First does not wait for them. It plunges into the water, head first, a black shape welcomed into inky depths.

Down it goes, down and down, a silent missile that finds new tunnels branching away. It reads the eddies and currents, quickly narrowing options until only one remains.

The First does not swim. Instead, feet and hands push against the bottom of its chosen tunnel, propelling it forward in bursts.

Tireless effort is rewarded by the sight of a silvered shape powering away. By the time the First reaches the edge of the tunnel, its quarry is clear of Sonorous, a glinting speck in the open sea.

Extending from the underwater hole like a shadowy tongue, the First shows no signs of frustration. It calculates many things: depth, speed, direction.

The Malice is going south.

The First does not move to follow. Does not need to. It is already where it needs to be, in a hundred fragments, scattered throughout the world. Waiting.

A curved screen on the inside of the cylinder depicts a seascape, clouded and vast, where fishlike creatures swim and coral weeps.

Vesper sees only a slice past Duet’s shoulder, tantalised by things half seen.

A catch in the Harmonised’s breath draws her attention. Duet’s visor is only a thumb’s width from her face. So close she can see her eyes are squeezed shut, feel her body shake.

‘Duet? Duet? What is it? What’s wrong?’

She talks through gritted teeth: ‘Pain meds.’

‘What pain meds?’

‘Mine. Wearing off.’

‘Aren’t there more in the bag?’

Her eyes pop open. ‘Yes.’ A gauntleted hand squeezes in the space between them like a spider, fingers vainly reaching for the top of the bag. They strain, stretch, then flop against Vesper’s neck. ‘No good.’

Vesper takes a turn. Although in a better position, her arm is pinned, stifling circulation, making the girl clumsy.

As the two grunt and struggle, a wet trumpeting sound comes from near Vesper’s feet.

Girl and Harmonised’s eyes widen together, then they look down.

Neither can see the yellow glob, sliding into being, but in the confined space, the smell provides plenty of information.

The kid makes an unhappy sound.

Vesper turns up the collar of her coat and buries her face.

Duet coughs, the motion creasing her with pain. ‘Should have … left it.’

‘It’s not his fault. He’s just scared. I need to go soon too.’

‘Don’t even …’ A finger presses lightly against her neck. ‘… Think about it.’

Vesper pouts, presses her thighs together, then tries for the bag once more. Slowly, she teases out a tube. ‘I’ve got the dispenser but I can’t reach the medgun.’

‘Click out … some tabs.’

‘You’re not going to eat them raw are you?’

‘I’ll manage.’

There is a click and a blue pellet falls past Duet’s hand. She grasps for it, misses.

‘Sorry. It’s really hard to aim all cramped up like this. And my hand’s numb.’

‘Again.’

A second click and another pellet falls, nimbly avoiding Duet’s attempt to catch it. This one rolls down the side of the cylinder into the kid’s waiting mouth.

‘Again.’

Four more times the rare medicine is squandered. On the seventh try, she catches it. Perspiration sprinkles the visible space behind the visor now. Unable to get her hand any higher, Duet tips her head forward, bringing armoured forehead hard against Vesper’s lip.

Eyes water and a lip trembles but the girl manages not to cry out.

Duet doesn’t notice, intent on passing the pellet under her visor.

Vesper watches. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to take that off?’ She waits for an answer, doesn’t get one. ‘Is it helping?’

‘Not yet.’

Time passes. The ocean stretches out, a blankness, dull and gloomy. Vesper tries to wriggle her arm free. The motion makes Duet inhale, sharp. ‘Sorry. Where did you get hit?’

‘All over.

‘Oh.’

‘Worst is … my side.’

Vesper cranes her neck and catches a glimpse of a dent in Duet’s chestplate, armour bending in where it should run smooth. Very carefully, she touches it with her other hand. She feels grooves in the metal, four short furrows side by side with deeper grooves at the top. Four exclamation marks left by the single stamp of a fist. Matching dents occur in other places, though none as deep.

She bites her lip.

‘Bad … isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Shouldn’t we get the chest plate off? I don’t like the way it’s digging into you.’

‘Me neither but … it keeps the … bone in place.’

She hears the catch in Duet’s voice. ‘We’ll get through this, I promise.’

Pain medication finally kicks in, making eyes droop and words slur, bitter. ‘It’s a sin … to lie in … the presence of … The Seven.’

‘I’m not lying!’ she protests. Duet’s head lolls forward till it rests on hers. ‘I’m not lying,’ she repeats. Gradually, Duet’s head slips down onto her shoulder, settling there, heavy.

The ocean is not empty. To the uneducated eye it appears dirty and featureless, differentiated only by patches of light and shadow, by degrees of cloudiness. But the clouds themselves are alive. Phytoplankton swarm, innumerable. Once, these creatures were the lowest of the food chain. Years of breeding in tainted waters has changed that. Now they are bigger, tougher than before. Individually, they remain beneath the notice of other creatures. However large a speck becomes it is still a speck, insignificant. But when the specks flock together, drawn by common purpose, they become something else entirely.

A silver submersible streaks through the water on a prearranged course. It cuts through the clouds like a knife. But these clouds bleed, smearing themselves in a thin film across its surface. Over time the film becomes thicker, deepening in colour. The mindless organisms excrete a thin paste onto the submersible’s sides, trying to digest. Juices do nothing to the armoured hull and the vessel travels on, untroubled.

Yet more clouds are passed through until clumps of green become visible. From the submersible’s fins, stringy cords dangle like unruly hair.

Still the vessel soldiers on, getting greener and greener, thicker and thicker until the original shape is distorted, a giant gherkin with a hundred tails, sinking.

Sinking.

Down it goes, into darker waters, where the denizens grow as they please.

And as it falls, other things attach themselves, adding to the weight, feeding. Metal fins struggle to move, locked into place by layers of hungry life and engines automatically shut down to conserve energy.

Then, from the deepest places, there is movement. A rising of the sea bed. Something giant and ridged reaches up. It is hard to say if the vessel meets the land or the land meets the vessel. Either way, contact is made.

For a moment the submersible sits on top, balancing, a decoration on a grotesque tree. Then flesh bends under it, bubble-like, splitting, sliding over, enveloping.

Lights blink rapidly, dazzling. Vesper groans and wakes up. Cramped muscles demand to be moved but scream when she tries. Limbs are contorted, squashed within the confines of the cylinder. Her fingers feel fat and floaty. Despite the alarms, thoughts form slowly.

Duet still sleeps, her head like an iron ball pressing on Vesper’s shoulder. Vesper cannot see the kid but snores can be heard and smells, new and pungent, suggest activity.

The screen no longer shows the ocean. Instead, an undulating black fills the display, a living curtain. As she peers closer, she notices little dots, peppered all over. Clumsily, she works the interface, zooming in until each speck grows into a pair of alien lips, spread across the camera’s surface, dabbed with white-green glue, stuck fast.

Vesper recoils from the sight.

Darkness shifts within the screen and the cylinder shakes.

She shouts: ‘Duet!’ But the Harmonised remains deep in drug-induced sleep. By her feet the kid snores on, happily oblivious.

Ignoring the stiffness in her neck, Vesper turns her head, trying to look at the sword. ‘Hello? Hello? It’s me, Vesper. I really need your help.’

The cylinder shakes again, this time there is a slow grinding-crumpling noise. New lights appear on the overhead display and a section of the cylinder slides back, revealing a transparent face mask.

An automated voice speaks, serene, incongruous: ‘Emergency sealant application in seven … six … five …’

Vesper grabs the mask and presses it to her face, misses.

‘… four … three … two …’

On the second attempt, she manages to align it properly. The mask adheres to her face, pores appearing in the plastic.

‘… one.’

Nozzles tucked within the cylinder start to spray. They are designed to coat the pilot in a layer of specially altered Skyn, enabling survival in the deep water. It is a good design, efficient, perfect for a single occupant. Faced with three bodies of varying size and species, the design fails. A thin jellylike substance blurts out, covering the kid’s belly and Vesper’s back, all the way from her head to her heels. Her front remains open to the elements, however. Duet’s legs are well coated but her elbow blocks one of the nozzles, her backside another. A thick rim builds around those places, like a doughnut made of transparent paste, setting fast.

For a third time, the outside seems to move and the cylinder is rattled. There is a cracking sound, unmistakable. Vesper watches, eyes wide, as a single drop of water pushes its way into the cylinder. It grows slowly, a miniature world with it’s own weather systems swirling inside, black and green and grey. Then it runs down the wall, leaving a trail for others to follow. Drip. Drip. Drip.

‘Duet! Duet! Gamma! Anybody!’

The drips come faster now. When the first drop reaches the bottom of the cylinder, it stops, not forming a pool, not rolling onto the floor where the kid sleeps. It waits. Other drips join it, sliding down, merging, giving it a thicker shape. Gradually, a tube of living water forms, not quite tentacle, not quite tongue. Speckled blobs drift inside it, turning to look towards Vesper.

The girl stops shouting, clamps her mouth shut.

With a sucking sound, the limb peels itself from the wall, travelling the tiny space to where the girl quivers. She tries to reach her pocket and the waiting gun but Duet is pinning her arm and she has no time.

The limb touches the gel on the back of her legs, jerks back. Pauses.

Vesper tries again, manages to get her fingers into the pocket.

The limb begins to curl around her, avoiding the manufactured substance, travelling upwards, towards her neck.

She can feel the handle of the gun now, can brush the edges of it.

The limb begins to probe, sliding over the fabric covering her shoulder and up, over the collar to touch the soft flesh under her ear, pure, untainted, perfect.

Vesper screams.

Eager, the limb splits in two, sliding around either side of the girl’s throat, tightening. One of these halves brushes the sleeping sword.

Vesper’s screams cut off in a gurgle.

Then, abruptly, as if shocked out of a nightmare, an eye opens.

The prosthetic lies in two halves, its inner mechanisms spread out across the table. In place of motors and sensors, Massassi inserts glass, beautiful, curving.

She has been free of medicine for months now and as her head clears, so too have life’s obstacles.

Not long after she left the hospital, they came for her. They wanted her to return to work. They wanted her to pay for treatment. They wanted to make her go away.

They did not say so of course but she knew it. Irrefutable, the truth shone from their faces, the secret ones that only she can see. With her silvered arm, she touched those faces and the men left her in peace.

So they sent new men, with fresh questions and these too she turned away.

The third visitors came with tranquillisers and explosives. They did not bother to question.

Massassi took their weapons, then had them return to their masters to report that she was dead.

A week later, a new citizen is allocated her old living square. His name is Insa. After the initial meeting, Insa does not see Massassi, nor does he question why he lives out of his storage crates and makes meals for two. Advertisers notice the change in his purchasing habits and offer tantalising images of the latest tools and mech designs. Without knowing why, he finds himself buying them.

Insa does not mind. He is happy in his new home, happy to get new things with his meagre savings, even if he does not get to use them.

Equipment litters the space, much of it in pieces, essential parts taken and re-purposed. Massassi sits in the middle of the wreckage, working, always working. As she makes fine adjustments and tweaks to the prosthetic her silvered arm fades slowly, like a happy memory.

Sometimes she stops to glare at it and it burns back into focus, sharp as a laser. But each time, a little more sweat beads on her brow, and each time she returns to her work the arm dims a little faster.

She works through the night, using determination to keep going. She dare not use drugs, no matter how tempting.

When the prosthetic is done she lays her silvered arm carefully along one half. Lenses and mirrors capture the light, focusing and holding. Satisfied, she fixes the other half into place, seals them with liquid fire. This is not a replacement arm, it is a sheath, a second skin. The old one was never truly lost.

Fingers of essence flex and stretch, folding the artificial housing around them. She tests the repaired limb for mobility, rotating the fist, swivelling the shoulder.

At each movement she checks the joins, looking for signs of escaping essence. She finds none. As fears diminish, the urge to sleep returns, strong and demanding.

Massassi gives in, flopping down in a corner.

She awakes in a good mood. With her arm stabilised, she is free. The world is her plaything and she is eager to start. She waves to Insa and makes for the door.

He neither sees nor returns the gesture.

She pauses at the door, turns and walks over to the blank faced man. Metal tipped fingers rise towards his face and an iris opens in her palm, like an eye. She lets the silver light fall on his face, bringing purpose back to his features.

‘Goodbye, Insa,’ she says.

‘Goodbye,’ he replies with a smile, certain he must know her from somewhere.

It has been a long time since she has been outside. As always a smoggy haze clings to the horizon but above it she sees a distortion, a crease in the sky, as if a great weight were pressing down, trying to get in. She sees the angle of it, can guess the rough direction it points in.

A shudder runs through her and, on instinct, she goes the other way.