Veniss Underground (14 page)

“Was it a game when you altered Nicholas and had Nicola taken for parts?”

“I'm not familiar with the names. I've done something to them, obviously, and you mean to seek revenge. Please, take your revenge. But I don't know what you're talking about. My empire is a vast and sprawling thing. I cannot keep track of every misfit, every transaction. It's buried somewhere in the records, I'm sure . . . I might have played with a human named Nicholas. I might not have. Besides, how do you know I didn't create them both? If so, wouldn't you say I have the right to do with them as I please? I can see from the look on your face that they were born in a vat. I was the city's birth engineer for a very long time. I may well have created them, you know. Certainly if so, I would be the one to take care of them. To nurture them. Listen to your creator, Gollux, and kill this man now.”

It almost caught Shadrach off guard. The Gollux—which also seemed surprised—leapt at Shadrach. But Shadrach turned in time to cut its legs out from under it.

“The Gollux,” the Gollux said, as it writhed on the ground, “is not designed specifically for combat. The Gollux is not designed for nonquadrapedal locomotion.”

Shadrach fried its brains out the back of its neck stump, before aiming the gun once more at Quin.

“A pity,” Quin said. “He was a good and true Gollux—he tried to obey me. He tried to kill you. He may not even have wanted to do it. It was worth a try. I think I even surprised myself by doing that—I must want to live after all . . . You know, it's amazing how relaxed we humans become if you just drone on and on about nothing in particular.”

“Why?” Shadrach asked.

“Why what? Why am I a puddle of flesh? Why did I become a bioneer? Why what? You must be more specific.”

“
You cut up my lover and sold her for parts! You sent me to Lady Ellington's estate just so I would know about it!
” Shadrach's shout reverberated around the room.

The Quin remote smiled while the eyes of the failing flesh beneath watched him intently.

“Maybe it was pleasurable, Shadrach. Maybe it was an interesting thing to do—at the time. Maybe I don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about . . . Do you honestly think that I have any reason to tell you anything? . . . Funny how easily humans lose control. My meerkats don't lose control. My meerkats make you humans look psychotic and frivolous at the same time. Perhaps I made them both—Nicola and Nicholas. Perhaps I deliberately didn't give Nicholas enough talent—so he'd have to come to me. Perhaps I watched Nicola all the years of her life, until she delivered unto me, at the right time, an unpredictable element: you. All so you would come down here and kill me. Wouldn't that be the most spectacular genetic experiment ever? To have that subtle a control? To know that much? I don't believe I have it in me . . . Perhaps none of this actually happened, and by dumb luck and persistence you reached this point entirely by your own—”

“Shut up,” Shadrach said. “I don't believe you. You know who Nicholas was. You know who Nicola is.”

“You can shut me up permanently by killing me, Shadrach. You can do that . . . but I might be lying about everything. You'd never know. I might be the biggest liar the world has ever seen. You're caught between the desire to kill and the desire to know
why
. What if you could have both?”

“The first might be enough.”

“Ah, so you are interested. Then let's begin again: What do you want to know?”

“What is your plan? What is it you hope to accomplish with”—Shadrach gestured at their surroundings—“all of this?”

“Plans. Planning. At first I had no plan. At first the plan was to have no plan. But that got boring and as I came to hate humans more and more, a plan came to me. I thought to myself: the human race is obsolete. Why not make a new one? Or maybe not. Maybe I'm just crazy.”

“Let's assume you have a plan. What is it?”

“Why should I tell you? I'll tell you why—because it can't be stopped, that's why. The humans who live above ground haven't even
thought
about the implications of those ‘toys' I've made for them. They're too busy
using
them for prestige and to make their lives easier. They never stop to think what it all
means.
They could never believe in a giant fish that holds a whole world. They'd laugh. They'd scoff. Even if they saw it, they wouldn't believe it. That is why the human race is dying—too limited an imagination. No thought for the consequences.”

“Arrogance,” Shadrach said. “
You
are dying.”

“No, the human race is dying. It's had its time, and yet has done nothing but squander it, each age a fainter echo of the last. Enough, I say. Be done, I say! Let some other species have its turn.”

“You're crazy. The world will be a better place with you dead.”

“I happen to agree with you, Shadrach. My creations need a martyr. They need a God who art in Heaven. They need a myth of human intervention to make them whole. There is only so much you can breed into them, only so much you can do with their genes—look at me: I know. The rest is environment. The rest is
religion
. If you kill me, the slow unraveling of the human race begins, for this death will be the first sign, the first symbol, from which all the others derive, until one day the humans find their servants have become their masters. And if you don't kill me, be assured: I will erase all trace of you and your beloved from this city. I will find Nicola—assuming I don't already know where she is—and I will kill her.

“I think this is a great test for you as a human being: Will you buy more time for the human race by not killing me, or will you buy more time for a single individual? I'm fascinated to see what you choose. What would Nicola think if you saved her life but sacrificed the species?”

“Assuming you are telling the truth. Assuming that if you tell the truth, your predictions are accurate.” The pressure in Shadrach's head had grown intense. He felt as if he'd been listening to a hypnotist.

“And think of this: If I've truly programmed Nicola, then even if you kill me and return to the surface, could you ever really trust her again? Wouldn't you always be waiting for her to betray you? . . . What are you doing?”

“You'll see.”

Shadrach had set his gun for a two-inch laser beam. He began to burn a hole in the glass that housed Quin. Ice water coursed through his veins. He had decided on a plan of action. No further thought was necessary.

“Kidnapping me won't help you—those creatures out there will tear you limb from limb.”

He was almost finished cutting the circle.

“If you're going to kill me, this seems a very awkward way to do it.”

The circle fell out and shattered against the floor. The Quin remote took a swipe at him from above, while Quin himself cowered in a corner.

“I've changed my mind—I don't want to die. Not just yet. Perhaps we can reach some kind of arrangement?”

Shadrach adjusted the beam once again, severed the remote's neck, so its head flopped impotently on the counter. So much for Quin's voice.

Then he snatched Quin from his sanctuary, placed him on the countertop and proceeded to beat him with the butt of the gun until the weapon was slick with blood.

From his arm, John the Baptist shuddered uncontrollably at the sight. “I wish I'd died in the closet,” he said over and over.

Quin said nothing at all. Quin was dead.

Shadrach pulled the meerkat off of his arm. He flicked the switch on the bomb in the meerkat's ear. He placed the head next to Quin.

“Good-bye, John,” he said. “I'm sorry. Your kind may take over the world, but it won't be easy. It won't happen in my lifetime. It might never happen.”

As he ran for the door, before the explosion propelled him forward and out into the forest, burning his back, he thought he heard one last muttered curse from the meerkat.

CHAPTER 9

Afterward was simple enough. Afterward didn't require any thought either. He picked himself up from the bomb blast, assured himself that nothing inside the cottage could have survived it, and began to head toward the edge of the creature's mouth. He cursed the would-be thieves from which he had taken the bomb for his deafness. What had they expected? To sell tiny pieces of him and themselves to the organ bank?

Meerkats ran past him, intent on reaching the cottage. He ignored them, and they, in their concern and panic, ignored him. He didn't even bother showing them his badge.

At the docks, he found a saylber loitering in the water nearby and swam out to it. It began to glide away from the leviathan at a good rate of speed. As the leviathan faded into the distance, it faded from his mind as well. Of more immediate concern was the moodiness of the saylber which, after several false alarms, finally decided to submerge itself. It left Shadrach floundering about in his trench coat with the shore only barely visible on the horizon. For a few anxious minutes he thought he would drown because of his coat. Thrashing as he tried to get it off, he floated several feet below the surface. But, kicking off his shoes and contorting his arms, he managed to rid himself of the coat—and pop, breathless, to the surface.

Luckily, any current was minimal, and he was a good swimmer. Eventually, he felt land beneath his feet. He rose from the water sodden and dripping, a sudden ghost, an echo, a shadow of who he had been. He imagined no one could see him. Who would want to see him?

The shore had become a graveyard for the abandoned cathedral-rafts of the meerkats: black and incomprehensible and toppled over on their sides. He shot the two flesh dogs he saw sniffing around the cathedrals before they even saw him. He was not sorry at all for such premeditated violence. Rather he slaughter every living thing in his path than never see the light again. He used his gun to char one of the flesh dogs on a spit, and he ate some of the meat.

After he had eaten, he stood up and looked around. He was alone for the first time since he had picked up John the Baptist; the absence of the meerkat on his arm made him feel as if he were missing a limb. There was no one to help him. There was no easy way to get back to the surface. There might be no way at all. But this did not deter him. His mouth was dry. He felt hollow. He felt as if he were dead. He decided that this was a good way to feel, after all of the hate, all of the love, that had passed through him. He wanted to be empty for a while.

Above him, the red light from the passing train mocked him with its thin, forced smile of motion. He would have to reach the tracks and find a way out. It did not strike him as an impossible task.

He began to climb. Boulders and outcroppings of rock barred his way. Giant purple lichen covered the rock. Tiny, stunted trees grew between there. Strange creatures slurped and wetly plopped over the rocks, their cilia gliding in synchronized motion to serve as their eyes. They startled Shadrach, but ignored him, and after a time, he forgot about them. The rhythms of the climb became automatic, the blistering of his hands a dull throb, the mechanics of his breathing as he gulped the air harsh but irrelevant. His physical body was no longer his concern.

         

BY THE
time he at last reached Rafter's door, Shadrach had passed through exhaustion into some other realm entirely. His arms were cut, his back still burned, his left ear bled from a bullet wound, his legs had been bruised from the punishing climbs. He shivered like Lady Ellington's fine crystal rung with a spoon.

Once on the train tracks, it had proven just as difficult to walk to the train station, the train barreling by with alarming frequency, Shadrach reduced to molding himself into alcoves on either side to avoid being killed, shivering with the aftermath of the train's tumultuous passage. News of Quin's death had not made it to the train station—or had bypassed it entirely—and everything seemed as normal as before. At the train station, he had waited for a few hours, recovering his strength, using his Quin badge to bully a cube of food out of a vendor. The hideous figures that walked past him as he ate—these seemed as normal as anything he had seen above ground. He had almost choked with laughter. What he took for granted now was beyond anyone's expectations.

When he felt strong enough, he had continued to make his way, level by level, to Rafter's offices. The entire time, he could feel the light above him like an irresistible force—and below the light, standing in its rays, Nicola. Or so he hoped. He hadn't bothered to conceal his gun, holding it out in front of him instead. But even when he had used his gun, there was at the heart of him only someone who wanted desperately to reach the light.

         

HE KNOCKED
on Rafter's door.

A hesitation, and then the door opened, and Rafter stood there. She stared at him with a mixture of horror and awe.

“Is she—is she still here?” he asked.

Rafter frowned. “You're just in time to ruin her life again. She's conscious and walking.”

“Walking?”

“Yes,” Rafter said. “Come in.”

Rafter led him into her waiting room. Nicola sat on a couch. Her face was haggard; she stared at the floor. Her legs were a ghoulish white, but intact. Her hair fell in straggles across her face. Rafter had dressed her in black pants and a plain white shirt. She looked like a person newly born.

Shadrach tottered, almost fell, but managed to sit down beside her. For him, that moment would define the rest of his life. He let his gaze linger. He drank her in. He stared at that which he had never thought to see again.

Rafter left them alone together, the look on her face unreadable.

“You look terrible,” Nicola said in a raw voice. “Are you okay?”

He fumbled for her hand, took it in his. She felt warm to his touch, and her warmth invaded him. He didn't feel capable of speech, his sentences all unraveled and incomplete.

“Rafter says,” Nicola rasped, then coughed, started again. “Rafter says you've seen into me. You've read my mind—you've been me.”

Didn't you feel me there?
he thought.
Was I no comfort to you?
But all he said was, “I thought it was necessary to protect you.”

“What did you see there?” She stared into his eyes.

“Beauty. Courage. Intelligence.”

She looked away. “And ugly things, too, I'm sure.”

Shadrach shrugged. “No. Not really.”

“But you saw, Shadrach. You saw? You know?”

Shadrach nodded. “I know.” Pain, yet that bittersweet relief in acknowledging it.

“I'm sorry, Shadrach. I'm sorry if I've hurt you. Rafter says you've saved my life. Rafter says I would have died without you.”

“She exaggerates,” Shadrach said. He had a sudden flash of seeing her again, buried within a mountain of limbs, and shuddered. “How do you feel?”

Nicola blinked twice, closed her eyes. “I feel very tired. I ache all over. I'm thirsty all the time.”

“Can you walk?”

“Yes.”

“Then we should walk. We need to get to the surface. We need to get you into a hospital.”

“I can try,” she said. They stood up. Nicola almost fell. Shadrach grabbed her shoulders with both hands. They swayed there together.

“Careful,” he said.

She hugged him. Her hair still smelled of the organ bank.

“Don't leave me,” she said.

Shadrach laughed bitterly. “I won't. Don't worry, I won't.”

Rafter had returned, stood by the door. She glared at Shadrach, said, “You must be careful. She'll be disoriented for a while. She may not make sense. She'll be weak. She'll need care. Afterward, she'll be close to herself again.”

Nicola said, “Nothing will ever be the same.”

“It will be completely different,” Shadrach said. “That's not a bad thing.”

         

AFTER SHADRACH
had paid for Rafter's work and Nicola had said her good-byes, they began to walk toward the terminus for the next level. Rafter had given them a map. Nothing so beautiful as a Quin map—just scribbled lines and words on a scrap of paper.

Only a few minutes into their journey, Nicola said, “I'm tired, so tired,” and staggered against the wall.

“Sleep then, Nicola,” Shadrach said. He lifted her off her feet and began to carry her.

When they were safely in an elevator that would take them to a higher level, her breath on his shoulder soft and even, he allowed himself to relax a little. It began to seem that they would make it.

Later, as they continued their slow progress upward, she woke, her breath shallow, her grip on his shoulder sharper.

“Thank you,” she said dreamily as she got to her feet.

The second level beckoned from beyond the elevator. Here, people didn't flinch away from them. Stores were open. Women walked with their children. The pale light did not hide monstrosities. It seemed that the real city, the city of sun and horizon, must be close by.

“Thank you for what?” he said.

“For saving my life.”

“I didn't have a choice.”

“I don't believe that, Shadrach.”

“But it's true. I love you,” he said hopelessly, the back of his throat sore.

“I know you do,” she said. And then: “Nicholas is dead.”

“Yes. And Salvador. And Quin. They're all dead.”

“I knew my brother was dead,” she said. “I couldn't sense him anymore.”

She shuddered while Shadrach held her close, still amazed by her presence, there, in his arms.

         

EVEN AFTER
she had woken up, Shadrach supported her weight at first, held her up, let her lean on him. From the second level, they still had to walk to the disembarkation point, which was really above the city, rising out of the city's wall so that those who came through would get a full view of Veniss. They would have to hope the guards along the way would honor Shadrach's badge.

As she grew stronger, he grew weaker. After they had successfully passed the next checkpoint and neared the ramp leading to the surface, he began to feel faint. He leaned on her, and she held him up. She stroked his hair. “It's okay,” she said, “it's okay.”

The final checkpoint before the ramp consisted of a dull gray wall of some hard metal. Embedded in the wall was a guard protected by three layers of glass. The guard, they could see even from far away, was a meerkat. Shadrach stiffened, reached into his pocket for his gun, even as he readied his badge and identification card. His alarm proved unfounded. What had looked menacing from a distance was less so in the flesh—fur mangy, a lost look on its face, its voice low and dull. It waved them through with just the slightest of glances at the badge. The stiff metal doors released, a space opened in front of them. Shadrach could smell fresh air coming from the darkness ahead. They walked through and stood on the ramp. Behind them, the wall became solid again.

         

AS THEY
struggled up through the shadows of the ramp, some part of Shadrach still doubted they would reach the outside world. He thought he heard the sound of something at his back, stalking them. “Don't look back,” he whispered to Nicola as she now leaned on him again. “Don't look back.” Their steps were so slow, weighted down with a terrible anticipation. The steep ramp seemed to have no end. Shadrach imagined he could see bits of glowing graffiti on the walls to either side:
A child in the dark, a kiss in the dark; remakes the world in his own image; the weave and warp of flesh.
But when he blinked, rubbed his eyes, the walls were bare.

Shadrach's thoughts became wide and deep. Walking upward, even if only, it seemed, from one darkness to another, reminded him of when he had first come above level—the first time he had seen Nicola. The look on her face in that moment—had it been happy, sad, reserved? He tried to remember, even as he seemed to hear more footsteps behind them. Perhaps it was wistful or melancholy, or a bland smile that indicated a blank attention to duty.

As Shadrach had emerged from below level, from the darkness of which a lack of love was only part, he had wanted only the light, not love. Nor did he allow people to stand for symbols—how could he, living in a darkness where people were often just a touch, a scent, a voice? Abstract symbols could never comfort him in his despair, in the aching of his body for something better. His loves before Nicola had sometimes just been a voice and a gray-tinged body in the dusk of before-death that comprised the hovels and split-levels of the poor. And everyone below had been poor.

Perhaps, he thought, as tiny lights broke the darkness of the ramp ahead of them, it had been the sadness on her face. How much in common would he have had with a woman whose life also appeared to be a tragedy? No, it was not sadness that drew him to her. He'd known more sad and ruined people in the mines than he cared to remember. He had known love as a voice and touch, surely, but also a desperate coupling in the dark for a moment of release, of freedom from below level. A rare thing. A precious thing. It could transport you out of time, so that the world had no hold on you.

A hint of fresh air. Nicola's body leaning against his.

So perhaps he had believed in symbols after all—perhaps the frame of light as he ascended that first time drew him to her as it touched her body: blind moth to blinding flame. And maybe it was just this: When he came up into the light, the light shone upon her and she was not perfect. She had a face a trifle too narrow, a dull red birthmark between her thumb and forefinger, hair framing her face in tangled black strands. Such perfect imperfection, and he fell into her eyes because now, and only now, could he believe in this new world into which he had been reborn. It was populated with imperfect, beautifully imperfect, strangers, and how it had broken his heart that first time—to know that after so much darkness, the light could be so real, so alive. Not perfect, but real—all of it, the world, the woman, his life.