Deadsweep, page 13
part #2 of The Return to Erda Series
Perhaps Abbadon made them with the red dots so he could easily tell the difference between his worms and a regular worm.
“Ear-worms are what people call those songs that get stuck in your head, so a thought-worm is the perfect name for these worms. They live in your head, and they manipulate your thoughts,” Pita said.
Pita opened the jar and held the worm in his hand. Even though we knew it was dead, we all had a moment of fear. The idea that that thing would crawl into your ear and make you crazy was terrifying.
But this worm was most definitely dead. Not that it had ever been alive, because as creepy as a real worm in your ear might be, this worm beat that.
Pita laid the worm down and then lifted the top half of its body off. Inside was a tiny computer.
“This is what makes this worm work.” Pita pointed to a small round thing near the top of its head, and said, “This is how it sees where it is going.
“We think that once it gets inside someone’s head, it is programmed so well it finds the nerves and amygdala that control thinking and start messing with them using various signals.
“It also appears to have the ability to manipulate the thyroid gland which begins to upset the balance of emotions. The body becomes flooded with hormones and testosterone, and everything goes crazy.
“Even though we usually don’t think of ourselves as a machine, our bodies do function like one. We aren’t consciously running it, but its functions are easily disrupted.”
Niko stepped in and said, “It makes sense that Abbadon would once again try to disrupt the body. First, he used sound waves. Now he is more refined.
“He has found something that directly upsets the body’s system. No more noise necessary. Can’t see this little bugger coming. Makes it so much harder to destroy. We might have thought that the Shrieks and Shatterskin were hard, but at least we knew where they were.
“Once he realized that we had figured out how to disrupt his machines, he built something small enough and unexpected enough to be silently effective. But he is still using devices. This time, though, his machines are causing people to go after each other. He just sets the destruction in motion, and then enjoys the result.
“I don’t think he believed we would figure this out this quickly. If the body had not been in that room, and the room hadn’t been that cold, and Pita wouldn’t have looked in the window at that time, we would still not know.
“We don’t think it occurred to him that we would freeze a body. That’s most likely why he waited until warmer weather. Plus, he probably figured everyone would be too afraid to get near each other, especially those that were infected. That meant the worm would remain undetected, maybe forever.”
“So you are saying that the worm would usually stay inside of a dead body? Wouldn’t they want that worm to crawl back out and infect someone else?” Zeid asked.
“We don’t think so,” Pita answered. “This worm doesn’t appear to have a working signal anymore. We think it ‘dies’ when its host dies. We think Abbadon was more interested in keeping it a secret then infecting someone else. Besides, he can probably manufacture as many as he wants.
“Abbadon likes machines. He knows how they work, and probably does see the body as nothing more than a machine. It would answer the question as to why he finds it so easy to kill.”
“But then wouldn’t he see himself as a machine?” I asked.
“It’s very possible that he does. And that is why he doesn’t need anything else to live. If he can design machines that keep his machine—his body—running, then he might be perfectly happy. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s on his bucket list,” Niko answered.
We all snickered. A bucket list with two things on it: kill every living thing and find a way to live forever—alone.
After the laughter died down, Niko said. “Since we think we might have the upper hand here because now we know what is causing this mental illness, and Abbadon doesn’t know that we know, this information cannot leave our team. For any reason.
“We can’t talk about it in the atrium or the halls. Pick one of the safe rooms to speak together, or don’t talk about this at all. We have no idea if Abbadon has ways of finding out what we know.”
“At one point, you thought perhaps we had a traitor among us. Do you still think so?” I asked. It might have been a pretty dumb question to ask, but I needed to know.
Professor Link answered my question, “No. Not in this room. Not with the Ginete, or the Whistle Pigs that we are working with. Otherwise, we would not be having this meeting. But somehow Abbadon finds things out. We don’t know how. I will be switching channels to speak with you often. I’ll find you though, so don’t panic.”
“Okay,” John said. We all smiled. Here goes John, asking the question we all wanted to know.
“I see you clarified a few things. And those zonking worms are disgusting. But is there a plan, or not, to get rid of this invasion of Deadsweep?”
“There is,” Pita said.
Thirty-Six
“Let me get this straight,” John said. No one missed his sarcastic tone of voice. “You have figured out how to stop these disgusting thought-worms from crawling into people’s ears and making them crazy?
“Really? How are we supposed to do that? We don’t know where they come from. We don’t have a clue how they choose who to infect. Is it targeted, or is it random?
“We don’t know ziffer. At least we don’t, but you do? Are you guys some kind of freaks or what? Or are you holding out on us, so you have all the control? Maybe you guys make the thought-worms and are blaming it on Abbadon.”
James put a comforting hand on John’s shoulder, but John shook it off and turned to glare at him and the other three men in the village.
We had all seen John upset, but had we seen him this upset before? Then I had a terrible thought. I started wondering if he was angrier than necessary. Was he irrational? Was he infected? If he was, was anyone else?
Everyone else must have had a version of the same thought because the room became deadly silent. John looked at everyone staring at him and stood up so quickly his chair fell over.
“Oh, zut no. You’re not going to say I’m infected. I’m rational, while you all are delusional.”
When no one said anything in response, John turned to Pita who was still standing on the platform at the front of the room and said, “Please tell me that I am not infected.”
Pita smiled at him, and said, “John, your questions are valid, and we’ll go through them together. I’ll tell you what we have answers to and what we don’t. And yes, we do have the beginnings of a plan for moving forward.
“As I said, we have the upper hand. It’s doubtful that Abbadon knows we understand how Deadsweep works. It’s obvious the first thing to do is to keep him in the dark as long as possible.
“As far as you being infected, I have good news for you. We have a way to find out. In fact, Teddy has set up a room for everyone to be checked.”
The room erupted as we all realized what he had said. Some of us might be infected, but instead of it being a mystery until we violently acted out, we could now tell.
Pita held up his hand. “That’s the good news. The bad news? We don’t know how to get the worm out without freezing your brain. Obviously, that’s not the answer. But we can isolate you until we find a ‘cure.’”
Niko stood. “Perhaps the best thing to do is have everyone checked before we continue this meeting. That way anyone can disagree without everyone else worrying that they are infected. I’ll get us started. I’ll go first.”
A murmur of agreement went around the room. Teddy must have been waiting outside the door for Pita to let us know about the testing because as Niko said those words, Teddy came into the room.
He looked exhausted. No wonder. The Ginete and Whistle Pigs had been working nonstop, and then they still had to travel to the Castle and set up while the rest of us ate and slept.
I raised my hand. I hadn’t been brought up in Earth schools for nothing. At Pita’s nod, I asked, “What about other beings? Are they infected the same way? Like the birds and animals? And …” my voice faltered as I looked down at the Priscillas hiding in my pocket.
Niko reassured me. “As far as we know, birds and animals are not infected. There would have to be very tiny worms and specially designed for their brains. I am not saying that Abbadon hasn’t thought of this, or will. And we don’t know how it would affect different beings. Perhaps they wouldn’t be angry; maybe something else would happen.”
I stood there trying not to give away what I was afraid of, but Beru understood immediately and said, “May Kara Beth go first and take her friends in with her?”
The light dawned on Teddy, and he put his arm around me. “I’ll take Flower Girl and Miss Princess and her friends with me first. Then perhaps you could all file in one at a time after that.”
“One more thing,” Niko said. “What happens if one of us is infected? Will we voluntarily go to be locked away until the cure is found? Or is there something in place to help us make that decision?”
The horror of what Niko was saying hit everyone at once. We might have to establish some kind of police force—unheard of in Erda. The police in Erda did things like rescue animals out of trees. They never used force or detained a criminal. Criminals hadn’t existed before in Erda. Well, other than the master criminal, Abbadon.
Having come from the Earth Realm and witnessing what could happen when any group gains that kind of power, even with the best intentions in the world, fear ran down my spine.
Deadsweep was a brilliant move on Abbadon’s part. He could systemically destroy the Kingdom of Zerenity without any danger to himself. We would become the danger. One infected person in charge and everything went to hell in a hand basket, as my father used to say jokingly.
I knew how fast evil could spread this way. It could quickly reach a tipping point that we could never turn back from. I wasn’t sure that the people in the room understood how deadly dangerous Deadsweep could be within a very short period of time.
Suzanne looked at me across the room. She knew. She had traveled to Earth. She had seen how quickly retribution, revenge, control, and greed could spread. Once another creature was perceived as not as important, or different, it was possible to kill them or destroy their life without remorse.
Erda was not prepared for this. They wouldn’t know what had happened to them.
I stood by the door paralyzed by the fear of what could happen. It was Suzanne that broke the spell by reminding me of something I had heard over and over again in the Earth dimension—heard and seen proven time and time again.
“Good is always stronger than evil, Hannah,” Suzanne said.
She wanted me to remember what Hannah knew, and Kara Beth had to live by too.
“So say we all,” I said.
“So say we all,” responded everyone in the room, including John. We were going to be okay.
Thirty-Seven
“Why did you set this room up in the Castle, Teddy,” I asked as we walked. “Why not leave us all down under and set it up there?”
“We do have one set up—down under, as you call it—however, we need some here too.” He nodded at one of the people working in the Castle, and I understood.
“You need to check everyone, don’t you?”
“We do. We need to know there is no one in trouble here. The Castle must be a completely safe space. Once the team leaves, we will be bringing more people into the Castle. But first, we need to make sure they are not ill. If they are, we’ll isolate them.
“We have already checked all the Ginete and Whistle Pigs that work with you. Not sure those thought-worms will work on us, but of course we have to check, anyway.”
By then we had reached the room where the Whistle Pigs had set up a testing room. It was odd seeing so many Whistle Pigs in the Castle. Usually, they were off in the tunnels working on one thing or another. I smiled at them all, and they waved their massive hands in response. I was proud of myself. I was beginning to be able to tell them apart.
“Don’t worry, Princess Pea,” Teddy whispered, “We had trouble telling you guys apart too at first.”
We both broke into giggles. I don’t know if the other Whistle Pigs could read our thoughts, but our giggles made them giggle too. Soon the whole room was laughing over nothing, really. But it sure felt good and broke the spell of gloom that had been hovering over the place.
The room they used was just another of the many beautiful places in the Castle. Now it had been set up with six stations partitioned off from each other with colorful curtains.
“Thank you for making this cheerful, Teddy,” I said.
“Speaking of cheerful,” Teddy whispered, nodding at my pocket.
I looked at him with a pleading look. He knew what I was asking. Would the test be okay for the Priscillas? And did he know what was wrong with them?
“It will, and I don’t,” he whispered into my ear, “But don’t worry. Let’s do this first.”
A Whistle Pig came over and led Beru to one of the curtained stations, and Teddy took me to mine.
“This is like a cross between an X-Ray and an MRI. However, it won’t make noise, and the rays that are going to look into your head aren’t dangerous. But the Priscillas would be better off doing this in the space that we have for those that are not so ‘human.’”
“I lifted the Priscillas out of my pocket and placed them gently in Teddy’s hands, and he took them over to another station. I lay down on the bed, and a small drone like thing briefly hovered over my head and then moved away.
“Okay, all done,” Teddy said handing the Priscillas back to me. I kissed the top of their heads and noticed they were a little perkier. I thought it was probably that their curiosity had been piqued. Fairies are like me. They like knowing everything.
“That’s it? Do you have the results?”
Teddy took me by the elbow and led me out to a row of tables on the other side of the room. Beru was already there waiting for me. The other four Ginete brothers were staffing the tables. There was what looked like a laptop in front of each of them.
The Ginete I knew as Sam turned the machine around and I saw a picture of what I knew to be a brain.
“Your brain,” Sam said. “Nothing there, and nothing in Beru’s or the Priscillas, either.”
We all laughed. Nothing in my brain sounded about right.
By then everyone had arrived ready to be tested. The line going in was sober and understandably withdrawn. The line coming out was noticeably cheerier.
I noticed Ruta standing on the side looking miserable. I knew he was in charge of taking people away if they were infected. The reasoning was he was the most unlikely of everyone to be infected by either the thought-worms or the desire to be in command.
They were right about that. Ruta was incorrigible. He might be Mr. Grouch, he might not always approve of me, but Ruta was, well, Ruta was Ruta. I considered it one of the blessings of coming to Erda to have met Ruta. I waved at him. He pretended not to see me, but I saw the hint of a smile on his face. I wanted to hug him, but he would have hated that so I just winked at him.
We had agreed to meet in the atrium for dinner after the testing was done. The table was already set when we arrived. We sat down, and the metal toadstools came by with their trays of food. I was starving. I hadn’t realized how afraid I had been that I was infected. Now that that worry had been taken away, I felt a million times better.
Everyone else must have experienced the same thing because as another person entered the room, everyone brightened up more and more. James walked in with his brother John who looked the happiest I had ever seen him. I couldn’t stop myself. I hopped up and ran over to John and hugged him.
“Thank you, Kara,” John whispered in my ear. “I am not sure I deserve your admiration. I’m so negative sometimes.”
I stepped back and held John’s hands and said, “We need you to question, John. Don’t stop asking things that we might have missed.”
James leaned over and kissed my cheek. I hugged him as he said, “Thank you, Hannah.” I loved that James treated me like a daughter. His daughter Liza was a lucky girl.
When Ruta walked in as light-hearted as I had ever seen him, we knew all was well. No one in the Castle was infected with Deadsweep. Even the Priscillas were back to being mischievous. They flew over to Ruta and sat on his head. To his credit, he didn’t flinch.
Niko stood at the front of the table holding up his glass of water. I used to think of him like a gazelle on steroids. He used to scare me. Now, I was so used to him I had forgotten how much he looked like a Greek statue. His dark skin glowed in the light coming down through the atrium ceiling.
Niko taught us how to fight if necessary, but this fight was going to be different, and we all knew it. So he was standing there to encourage us all. We had passed the first test. There was more to come, but at that moment we were reveling in our good fortune.
“To us,” Niko said.
“To us,” we responded.
Thirty-Eight
“These are the things we need to work out,” Niko said. We were back in Professor Link’s classroom after having dinner.
“We have some ideas for each area, but let’s see if we can fill in more gaps by stating the problems up front.
“Here’s what we know. We know why people are acting out. The thought-worms are causing brains to malfunction. We know the worms live inside the brain. We know that in subzero cold they crawl out of the person’s ear and die. We know how to determine if someone is infected.
