Voices From Beyond (A Ghost Finders Novel) (29 page)

“Maybe,” said Felicity. “It doesn’t matter. Sometimes . . . I need to know the truth. For its own sake. Though I have to say it does my heart good to know for a fact that the Powers That Be really are conspiring to keep secrets from the rest of us! God, I feel so vindicated . . .”

“Welcome to my world,” said Happy. “We have T-shirts and everything.”

“And you don’t even want to know what the
and everything
involves,” said Melody.

“You said something very encouraging about incendiary devices,” said Sally. “And I do wish you’d get on with it. I won’t feel safe until we’ve blown everything here to shit and roasted the remains. I will personally volunteer to stamp on anything that survives that’s bigger than a very small thing.”

“I could make some Molotov cocktails,” said Captain Sunshine. “It’s been a while, but you never really forget . . .” He realised everyone was looking at him and smiled vaguely. “One of the things you picked up, back in my day. Everyone did . . . Don’t need to be a Weatherman to know which way the wind’s blowing, and all that . . .”

“These organic machines are almost certainly a lot tougher, and better protected, than they look,” JC said carefully. “The Beast wouldn’t put its faith in anything that could be easily destroyed. Or couldn’t take care of itself . . . But you are right, Sally. Everything must go.”

“Everything must go up!” said Happy.

“All of this stuff functions as machines,” Melody said slowly. “And I suppose . . . in its own appalling way, under all the fleshy trappings, this is still some kind of technology. So possibly, I might be able to reprogramme these computers and shut down their defences. This might be organic, but it’s still machinery; and I know all about getting machines to do what I want. Except . . .”

“And you were doing so well there,” said JC. “Except what?”

“Except . . . I don’t even know where to start!” said Melody, glaring about her. “There’s nothing here I can recognise as any kind of tech. No obvious operating systems, or computer access points, nothing to get at . . . For all I know, this whole system works through chemical relays . . .”

JC turned to Happy. “Does anything here have a mind, as such? Some kind of Artificial Intelligence, or organic consciousness? Anything you can read or influence, with your E.S.P.?”

“I’ve been picking up something, ever since I came in here,” Happy said reluctantly. “But it doesn’t make any sense! It’s like listening to the buzzing of bees, or termites in a hill . . . Not just inhuman, actually alien. Wherever the original designs for these living machines came from, it definitely wasn’t anywhere around here. Maybe this all came from the Beast’s original world. I always got the sense the Beast created that Other Place, where we found it, to have somewhere it could play. That’s how it was able to control everything in it so utterly.”

“Hold it,” said Melody. “Could it be . . . that this isn’t the work of the Beast or the Flesh Undying, but . . . Something Bigger, from Outside?”

“I don’t know!” said Happy. “Stop trying to complicate things!”

“I say, let’s deal with what’s in front of us,” JC said carefully.

“Fair enough,” Melody said briskly. “Let’s make a start with the death and destruction.”

She had her machine-pistol in her hand again. Everyone edged away. Melody took careful aim at the bulging central mass and opened fire. But not a single bullet got anywhere near it. The moment she started firing, all the fleshy shapes surrounding the central mass slammed together to provide cover for it. The thick, pulpy masses soaked up the bullets, suffering no obvious harm. And every other organic shape in the cellar began to stir and shake angrily, rising and swelling up, throwing out new tentacles and protuberances. Everything in the cellar seemed to lurch forward, heading for the human intruders. Melody swept her machine-pistol back and forth, raking the organic shapes with a steady rate of gunfire, hitting everything she aimed at; but it didn’t even slow them down. Tentacles hanging down from the ceiling lashed out at her, stretching in her direction.

Melody lowered her gun and looked at JC. “Time to escalate to things that go bang.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” said JC.

The radio staff were already hurrying back through the open doorway, wedging themselves together in the narrow gap. The Ghost Finders had to stand their ground, to protect the others. Melody kept up a steady stream of fire, cutting through lashing tendrils and stretching protuberances as they reached for her. Black blood spattered everywhere as severed ends flailed wildly. Happy turned his E.S.P. on the nearest organic shapes, hitting them with furious telepathic blasts. The living machinery shook and shuddered under the impact. Some fell apart, unable to maintain their focus. A few exploded, blown apart by internal pressures run amok. JC took off his sunglasses, and the nearest advancing shapes halted immediately wherever he turned his glaring golden eyes on them. They didn’t seem hurt, or damaged, but they couldn’t press forward as long as he was looking directly at them. But everywhere else, everywhere he wasn’t looking, the bulging shapes came on.

Interestingly enough, none of the organic things wanted to go anywhere near Kim. She stood where she was, looking around, and all the organic shapes went out of their way to go around her. Even though she was entirely insubstantial. Or perhaps because of that.

Felicity was stuck at the back of the crowd by the door; partly because she hadn’t reacted quickly enough when the shapes started advancing, partly because she was still fascinated by everything that was happening and reluctant to leave until she absolutely had to. She turned away from the struggling crowd for another look, and a dozen thick tentacles snapped down from the ceiling and wrapped themselves around her. She struggled fiercely, but her arms were pinned to her sides, and she was quickly lifted off the floor and dragged away, towards the central mass.

Melody looked around as Felicity cried out, and opened fire on the tentacles above Felicity’s head. But for every one she shot through, more spilled down from the ceiling to take its place. Jonathan came running back from the door. He jumped up and grabbed Felicity’s legs, and his weight was enough to pull her back down to the floor again. He tore at the clinging tentacles with his bare hands, and they broke apart under his impassioned strength. They let go of Felicity, and she fell to the floor, gasping for breath. The tentacles whipped around Jonathan instead, and dragged him away. Kicking and struggling, he disappeared between the shielding organic shapes, towards the waiting central mass.

JC and Happy went after him, forcing the organic shapes out of their way through sheer willpower, but so many things threw themselves in the way that they couldn’t keep up. Melody fired at the ceiling’s tentacles until she ran out of bullets and had to stop to reload. The great central mass split from top to bottom, and opened up, the two sides curling back like great fleshy petals to form a gaping mouth, or wound. Jonathan saw the dark maw waiting for him and fought even more fiercely. To no avail. The tentacles threw him into the waiting opening, and the central mass swallowed Jonathan up. Felicity cried out in shock and scrambled to her feet, dripping thick mulch from the floor.

She started towards the central mass. JC grabbed her by the arm and held her back. She fought him, crying out Jonathan’s name.

“You can’t help him!” said JC. “We have to get out of here and find something we can use to reach him . . .”

Felicity stopped struggling and looked at JC. “I don’t understand! Why would he sacrifice himself, for me?”

“Because he loved you, you silly bitch,” said Tom. He’d come back from the door to help Jonathan but stopped when he saw there was nothing he could do.

“I never loved him,” said Felicity.

“He knew that,” said Tom.

JC started to urge them all back towards the cellar door, then everyone stopped as the great central mass opened up again, and Jonathan came out. Or what remained of Jonathan. He’d been reworked, remade, inside the central mass, altered to suit its purposes. Things had been done to him, layers of strange flesh added to him, until he was half as large again as he used to be. He didn’t move like anything human any more, lurching and sliding along, half-buried under new alien organs, his face hidden behind a thick scarlet mass. Tentacles burst out of his sides, lashing at the air. A single unblinking eye stared from his forehead; and when his mouth opened, the sound that came out was utterly alien. Happy winced and clapped both hands over his ears. JC could feel a new presence, beating on the air. Something new had been born in the cellar; and it was trying to get inside his head. Melody shook her head sickly, trying to shake off the influence. Tom and Felicity stood where they were, all traces of personality seeping out of their faces.

Sally and Captain Sunshine turned away from the doorway and came back into the cellar. Something in the sound Jonathan was making had got inside his friends and colleagues and taken over. He was broadcasting a signal, like a living radio, and the signal controlled the radio staff.

JC and Happy and Melody fought the signal, refusing to give in to it. Kim looked anxiously at them, not feeling it, not understanding. Because the signal only affected the living. The radio staff pressed forward, trudging through the thick mulch on the floor, coming to kill the enemies of the living machines.

But all Ghost Finders from the Carnacki Institute are thoroughly trained in how to defend themselves against psychic attacks. One by one, JC and Happy and Melody threw off the living signal, and turned to face the advancing radio staff. Their movements were off, their faces empty, but they all moved with a single will and purpose. There was nothing human left in them to stop them doing terrible things to the enemies of the living machines.

“What do we do, JC?” said Melody. “I can’t just shoot them! Or at least, I don’t want to. Think of something!”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking!” said JC. He looked desperately around him.

“No other way out of here,” Happy said immediately. “I already checked. Come on, boss; they really are getting very close now.”

JC turned his golden glare on the advancing radio staff, and that slowed them down a little, but only as long as he was looking at a specific person. The others kept coming. He looked quickly from one person to another, but it soon became clear that wasn’t going to be enough. Melody raised her machine-pistol, then lowered it again. Happy stepped forward to meet them; and a tentacle snapped down from the ceiling to wrap itself around him. He barely had time to cry out . . . before the tentacle snapped away from him, releasing him. It writhed and convulsed in mid air, then fell deathly still. The Ghost Finders looked at it; and then JC and Melody looked at Happy.

“All right,” said JC. “What did you do to it, Happy?”

“I didn’t do anything!” said Happy. “It touched me and died!”

“It’s your sweat!” said Melody. “We’re all sweating like pigs in this heat; but your sweat is still full of the residue of all those pills you took! You poisoned it!”

“Oh come on,” said Happy.

“No!” said JC. “That’s the answer! Now, take it to the next level. The living machines may be alien in nature, but they still work by chemical processes. Which we can disrupt, with your appalling medications. Force-feed the head of the central mass, and it should shut itself down in mass confusion.”

“Usually works for me,” said Happy. “Except for all those times when it doesn’t . . .”

Kim stepped forward to block the way of the advancing radio staff, buying her colleagues some time.

“Give me every pill you’ve got, Happy,” said JC. “I’ll take them inside the central mass.”

“No,” said Happy. “It has to be me. Because the only way you can get the central mass to take in the pills is if you take them yourself, then let the central mass take you. Like it took Jonathan. And you couldn’t hold as heavy a dosage as me. Come on, JC; you know whoever goes inside that thing probably isn’t coming out again.”

“I know,” said JC. “That’s why it has to be me. I’m team leader. That makes this my responsibility.”

“No,” said Happy. “It has to be me. Because I’m dying already.”

“No!” said Melody.

Happy turned and smiled at her. “You know it’s true, Mel. And if I’m going to die, I’d rather it was to some good purpose.”

“I’m not ready to lose you yet,” said Melody.

“You never would be,” said Happy.

“No-one has to die!” Kim said loudly. “There’s a better way.”

They all turned to look at her. She smiled dazzlingly, and hurried back to step inside JC, fitting her form to his. The two of them joined together, and a golden glow formed around JC’s body. The radio staff fell back, unable even to look at him, and the transformed Jonathan and all the organic shapes fell back, too.

“Don’t worry,” said Kim, through JC’s mouth. “I’ll bring him back safely.”

“Give me the pills,” JC said to Happy.

Happy emptied out his pockets, opened up all the bottles and boxes, and poured the contents into JC’s waiting hands. JC closed his glowing hands over them and turned to face the central mass. He strode steadily forward, and the living machines had no choice but to retreat back out of his way. The transformed Jonathan tried to block his way and couldn’t. JC put a hand on Jonathan’s arm, and his glowing fingers sank deep into the fleshy layer as he gently pushed Jonathan to one side. He walked up to the central mass, and it opened slowly, reluctantly, before him unable to defy his glowing presence. JC and Kim walked forward, together, into the central mass. It closed behind them, taking them within itself.