7th Son, page 27
Calm down. Calm down.
It wasn’t helping. Just seconds ago, one of the shades—they’re men, just men; look at the dead man on the dance floor, that’s what they all are, just men wearing special camouflage—had pulled John off the floor. The man’s gun dug into the side of the clone’s face.
A second shade had done the same to Dr. Mike and had taken his commlink. The two clones were hauled over to what was once, in a former life, a movie-house balcony. Now it was a dusty VIP lounge, and just outside the doors of the glass-encased room, the shades shoved John and Dr. Mike toward the balcony railing.
It was strange, being handled by these things. Even here, up close, John couldn’t see their faces and could barely make out their shapes. The Vaporwear really did make these men nearly invisible. A subtle distortion of the surroundings was the only giveaway. John’s mind flitted briefly to Star Trek reruns, Romulans and cloaking devices. Vaporwear was clearly a cloaking device for a person. But nothing could hide the odor of these men—they reeked of filth and booze.
Why would soldiers smell like this? It doesn’t make sen—
The shades shoved John and Dr. Mike even closer to the balcony railing. The expanse of the club lay below them, the mammoth silver statue glimmered directly ahead. John spotted several bodies in the moonlight.
Christ, how many of us are left?
John felt the barrel of a pistol gnaw into the base of his skull. One of the shades behind him screamed over the sporadic gunfire. “Anyone moves, anyone fires another shot—and they die. Anyone tries to call for backup or transportation—and they die. There are two of us up here. There’s another watching from the skylight. The angles are covered well enough. Try anything . . . anything . . . and their pretty freak faces go bye-bye.”
Silence. Somewhere, a splintered chunk of metal clanged to the floor.
From below, Michael’s voice: “What do you want?”
The shade behind John laughed. “To give you a message. A message from John Alpha. But to hear it, you have to come out. And not just you, marine. All of you. Come out. Come out!” A chuckle, then a whisper: “Wherever you are.”
John squinted past the statue, to the dance floor. Nothing.
Finally, Michael’s voice boomed from the shadows. “I have wounded down here. Some of them aren’t going to make it. They need a doctor.”
“We’ve got one up here, faggot—though it’s not the kind you need,” the shade behind John cried. The clone flinched as the gun pressed harder into his neck. “Play cowboy, now. Round up your tin soldiers and bring them out here in the open. We know where you’re hiding—we can see you. Can you see us? Can you see us well enough to risk taking a shot when these freaks here are standing so close? Come out, homo, and bring your wounded.”
More silence. John felt a bead of sweat slide down his nose.
“We can’t trust you,” Michael called.
“Of course you can’t,” the first shade, who stood behind Dr. Mike, replied. “To wit.”
Dr. Mike’s right biceps exploded in a shower of blood. The gunshot was almost deafening at this range.
“FUCK!” Dr. Mike howled. “He shot me! I’m fucking—”
“Shut up!” the shade bellowed. “Don’t you fuckin’ fall down, Doc. You stand right there, stand straight. Shut your face and listen. That’s what you’re best at, isn’t it? Listening to killers? Writing about killers? Take notes, pretty boy.”
Dr. Mike clutched his arm now; blood oozed between his fingers, soaking his combat jacket. He breathed heavily between clenched teeth . . . but he did not fall. And did not speak.
“Blame the cowards!” the shade cried into the darkness. John could smell the alcohol on the man’s breath. It was nauseating. “Blame the gutless ones who won’t do as they’re told! You’re good at following orders, marine, so why aren’t you doing it now? I need not remind you that the next bullet is going into someone’s cerebellum. And wouldn’t that be a shame, all those shared childhood moments spraying onto the floor?”
In the low light streaming from the hole in the ceiling, John spotted movement from below. Michael stepped out of the shadows, from behind Folie à Deux’s smashed, shattered DJ booth. He was covered in dust and grime. He held a XM8 machine gun in each hand.
“Good dog,” the shade behind John said. “Drop the guns. Order the other mice to come out of their holes.”
Michael tossed his weapons and made a quick motion with his hands. Slowly, the rest of the squad emerged from their positions. They, too, threw their guns to the floor. Of the eleven soldiers who had flown here with the clones, only five were now alive.
“So.” Michael looked up at John, then past him. “We’ve made one enormous leap of faith with you punks.”
Faith, John thought. We all need a little more of that right now.
The gun barrel dug into his neck again.
“Aw, you’re all almost ready for big-boy pants,” the first shade said. “So here we are. Three clones, five soldiers who have a hard-on for suicide missions, and us. Us. Three men who have your lives in our hands. Amazing, how so many can be cut down by so few.”
“Picking off the enemy is much easier when you’re invisible,” Michael called. “Who are you people? Where’d you get that gear?”
The second shade chuckled from behind John. “When your employer has a connection with DARPA, there’s plenty to borrow.”
From the dance floor, Michael considered this. “DARPA. That’s what I thought. The suits work a lot better than when I tested the prototypes a year ago. You know, you’re giving away an awful lot—how many men you have here, where you got your duds, tidbits about who’s funding you. Sloppy.”
“True. But are we giving away an awful lot . . . or are we spoon-feeding you hints?” the first shade said. “Am I feebleminded, or are we playing a game? I’m mum on the subject. And speaking of Mum, let’s talk about her.”
“That’s why we came here,” Michael said.
“Wrong,” the shade snapped. “You’re here because you followed the bread crumbs. You worked from a supposition that John Alpha kidnapped your so-called mother and that you’d find her here and save her. But, as I’m sure you discussed at some point, you had no proof of any of those things. You made, as you just said, a leap of faith. Here’s another possibility: you may be here simply because Alpha wanted an economical way to murder you. Perhaps the failure of tonight’s mission isn’t that you didn’t find your mother, but that we didn’t get to kill all seven clones at once.”
“That’s bullshit,” Dr. Mike said from beside John. Sweat was dripping from his face. “If you wanted us dead, you could’ve killed us weeks ago. Years ago.”
The first shade whipped his gun into the back of Dr. Mike’s helmet. The clone nearly collapsed from the impact.
“Keep quiet!” the shade barked. “Unless you want to eat another bullet.”
“No, he’s right,” Michael called from below. “This isn’t about bringing us together to kill us all. It’s about playing the game. He’s testing us.”
“You’re smarter than you look, faggot,” the second shade said.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me that. That’s my business, and my business ain’t the business we’re here to discuss. Is our mother alive?”
“She is.”
“Is she in this building?”
The second shade behind John chuckled. “What’s left of her, yes.”
“Is John Alpha also here?” Michael asked.
“Indeed.”
“Where?”
And on cue—because it’s certainly on cue, John thought, Michael’s right, it’s a game, we’re just little plastic cars in Alpha’s board game of Life—a set of doors on the far end of the club swung open. The doors slammed theatrically against the walls. Out of the dimness stepped a man who looked just like John and Dr. Mike and Michael, only . . .
. . . only different.
His stride was measured. Confident. Deliberate.
The full moon shone though the wrecked remains of the skylight. The man stepped toward the center of the dance floor, now illuminated.
“Ta-daa,” John Alpha said.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Jack, Jay, and Kilroy2.0 read the CDC report in silence, here in the 7th Son facility’s circular Common Room. The report, filed by a CDC field agent five months ago, flickered on one of the hacker’s five computer monitors.
That July, the corpses of ten men had been discovered in Heber Springs, Arkansas. Two maintenance engineers at Greers Ferry Dam had spotted the bodies lying on a maintenance catwalk used by employees. How or when these strangers had invaded the premises, no one knew. Also unexplained was how the ten men had received access to the catwalk, which was mounted approximately two-thirds of the way up on the 243-foot-tall dam wall.
According to Cleburne County Sheriff investigations, whose data was included in the CDC report, nearly all of the men had been reported missing by family or friends about three weeks before the gruesome discovery at the dam. Most of the men were friends, employees at a local metal-stamping factory. Reports stated that at least four of them had exhibited erratic behavior at home before their mysterious departure. The men acted as if they were unfamiliar with their surroundings, rejected favorite meals, and ignored family members outright.
What the ten men did during their three-week “lost time” was unknown, though at least one wife assumed her husband had left town to binge, purge, and “dip his wick into some sin-den hussy.” The CDC agent did not elaborate on this accusation in her report.
The ten bodies were found at various places on the catwalk. Autopsy reports revealed no toxic substances in the bodies; in all cases, blood-alcohol content was practically nonexistent. No heart failure. No strokes. No long-term diseases. They had just died sometime in the night. Were they poisoned? The test results said no.
This dearth of explanations sparked the county coroner to call the CDC field office in Dallas. The bodies were flown to Dallas for further examination. The brains of all ten men were examined . . . and that’s where things got spooky. An inexplicable pattern of cell and tissue damage had devoured their brains. Nerve centers had decayed. Entire lobes had lost their solidity. Their brains had liquefied. No carcinogenic or foreign elements were discovered after several tests.
The CDC field agent noted in her report that this discovery could not be classified by current CDC standards. No existing virus or illness—absolutely none—came close to describing the condition of these men’s brains. It was as if the minds had physically burned themselves out and begun to cave in on themselves. A case of, as the agent put it, “brainrot.” The cause could be environmental or viral, the agent wrote.
If the deceased are victims of an as-yet-to-be-identified environmental or viral invasion, the report concluded, the agency must consider further study of this incident and apply quarantine and outcome scenarios, if appropriate. However, this agent is reluctant to condone such an action at this time for the following reasons. (1) All ten subjects were found wearing an identical “dog tag”–style necklace featuring an unidentifiable symbol. (2) Each victim had a peculiar tattoo on the back of the neck featuring a unique letter/number combination. (3) Also found at the scene were inscriptions made on the dam wall by the men. These messages are either gibberish or in some kind of code.
These three peculiarities may imply membership in a local club or cult, a theory which is currently supported by local law enforcement. Attempts have already been made to keep the discovery of a so-called ritual suicide out of the local newspapers for this reason. Bearing these anomalies in mind, the results of this report should be considered once the lost-time activities of the deceased can be accurately determined by local law enforcement. At present, there are too many x-factors in the case to recommend an immediate course of action.
Included in this file are photographs of the bodies at the CDC Dallas office, and at the scene of discovery.
“My God,” Jay muttered. He rubbed his eyes and looked to the others. “Is this . . . is this what we’re looking for?”
“Could very well be,” Jack said. “The NEPTH-charge symptoms that Kleinman told us about are all here, especially what this agent calls ‘brainrot.’ The personality change is evident in the men, too—a possible sign that the original memories were erased, and a new identity was downloaded into the mind. That may be the clincher. What do you think, Kilroy?”
Kilroy2.0 placed his hand on the computer mouse and directed it to the bottom of the page. The pointer rested over a link that read, Attached image 1 of 24: nu4446-ot-898vf-1.jpg.
“I want to see these photographs,” he said, and tapped the mouse button.
It was a crime-scene photo, taken from one end of the dam’s sixteen-hundred-foot-long catwalk. There they were, all of the men lying on the walkway. They didn’t look dead. They looked as if they were sleeping . . . except for one strange detail. Each man held a fat permanent marker in his left hand. Near the body of each man was writing on the dam wall. The photo was taken from too far away for the messages to be legible, but one thing was clear: the writing looked like the chicken scratchings of a child, or of the elderly. Jagged, ghoulish. The men had written these words as their bodies went spastic, as the brains inside their skulls were rotting. Their last words.
“What does that say?” Jay asked, pointing to the message in the foreground of the photo. “ ‘Yg’? ‘Ygcn’?”
“Let’s find out,” Kilroy said, and clicked another link.
“Jesus!” Jack hissed.
They stared at the photograph, the jagged red lines slashing across the slate gray of the dam’s concrete surface. It was a madman’s signature, a killer’s taunt . . . in another language.
ygcn ygclj
“What the hell?” Jay said. “That’s no language I know.”
Kilroy clicked more links. The images appeared, and they looked at them in horrified silence. The rest were written in that same creepy nonlanguage.
“These were written by ten different men,” Jack said. His face was pale. “But look. The handwriting is identical.”
“So they were NEPTH-charged,” Kilroy said.
Jay stared at the screen. His eyes were watering. He couldn’t blink. “What does it mean?” he whispered.
“It means this is bigger than we thought,” Jack said. “These are messages. For us. It’s another goddamned puzzle.”
Hugh Sheridan’s quarters smelled of cigarettes and dust. Beneath that, an underlying aroma of mothballs. The place was a basement studio apartment, complete with kitchenette, dining alcove, and Murphy bed. In the dimness, Father Thomas spotted a couch and two comfy chairs; Sheridan was sitting in one of these. Most of the overhead track lights were out, either switched off or filled with long-dead bulbs. A single spotlight shone uselessly into a corner.
“Can I sit down?” Thomas asked.
The shadow of his father waved an arm toward the couch. “I certainly don’t expect you to stand.”
Thomas sat on the far end of the couch. That musty smell was everywhere now. He squinted through the dimness at his father. Most of the man’s features were lost in the shadows, but the hair seemed familiar. So did the curve of his chin, his neck. His shoulders. The silhouette of his ears, of all things. Thomas stared at him. The sensation was like finding an old photograph in a closet-shelf shoebox—that feeling of discovery, of nostalgia, bittersweet, fragile, of emotions and memories furiously whipped together by a brain surprised with such a find. It was more than looking at an old photograph, of course. But for a moment, for Thomas, that’s how it felt.
He cleared his throat. His palms were sweating. He pulled the pistol from his belt and placed it on the cushion beside him. He noted Sheridan’s curious glance. The priest felt a moment of regression, as if he’d just been caught with a hand in the cookie jar.
“It was just for show,” he stated, embarrassed. He sighed. “Okay. I know you’re not my father. I know that I only remember you as my father, and that those memories are someone else’s. I know that. But I don’t feel that. Not yet. There’s a difference.”
Hugh Sheridan nodded.
“It’s hard for me to look at you . . . to hear you . . . and not associate it to a childhood with you,” Thomas said. “But I’m going to try. I have—”
“I heard some of what you said through the intercom. But let me be the first to ask a question. Which number are you?”
“Number? I don’t follow.”
The shadow-dad changed position in the chair; he was reaching for something in his shirt pocket. Smokes. Thomas heard the characteristic tinny chik-chik of a disposable lighter. His father’s face glowed behind the flame, an orange portrait of not then but now: bags under blue eyes, wrinkles crisscrossing over eyebrows, trenches of crow’s-feet above the cheeks. Thomas felt what all estranged children feel when they see a parent after years of absence: He looks so old. What happened while I was gone?
Sheridan’s eyes flicked up from the cigarette and gazed into Thomas’s. The flame hung between them for another second, then vanished.
“I guess Kleinman didn’t tell you about that,” Sheridan said. “The numbers.”
Thomas watched the cigarette’s amber tip, transfixed. “I think there’s a lot Kleinman didn’t tell us.”
Sheridan smiled. “I wouldn’t doubt it.” His voice was low, acidic. “Complicity is best given by the uninformed. You clones were given numbers when you were plucked out of those plastic wombs years ago. When the Memory Totality of John—John Alpha—was downloaded into your vacant minds, each of you was given a number . . . the number being the order in which you received the data. Numbers. Unoriginal, I know, but we were excited new parents of septuplets. I suppose if we’d cloned only four of you, we could’ve called you Eenie, Meenie, Miney, and Moe. But ‘4th Son’ just doesn’t have the same ring, does it?”
