He set his rifle down, carefully, its stock against the rotting carpet and its muzzle braced between an ancient, moldering chair and the wall.
A few moments later, he had shimmied outside the window, breathing the soft fragrance of a night without internal-combustion fumes or the close fug of a dank, slowly decomposing building. His boots left dark prints in the rank, moisture-heavy grass, and after a few steps he was damp to the knees. He watched the fountain, its draperies glittering under the light that definitely wasn’t coming from a moon. Instead, it came from the strands themselves, and from the fur of the pale creatures who were everywhere, climbing the buildings and making that soft, impenetrable brushing sound. They ignored him, and after a while his hand fell away from his gun while he watched the light finger their soft, blurring shapes.
“Seryozha!” A familiar shout in the distance, just a whisper on the wind, with the half sob in the middle. Just as Grisha had called him that winter afternoon, flailing because the trap had bitten his ankle, lucky not to lose the whole foot, lucky, lucky …
He turned toward that distant cry, the light and shadow soothing. Throbbing, almost, a hypnotic swirl. The boogaloos stilled as one, their fur rising powder-puff, but it was not his presence they sensed.
Sergei Sergeyevitch Senkinistov did not notice when they vanished, the furred things suddenly swallow-swift. He was too busy moving through the thigh-high grass, his sidearm dropping from one nerveless hand as green vegetation turned into fine, lacelike silver strands. He did not look back, chasing a faint voice from the echoing well of the past.
A flashing lure in water shimmering-silver had drawn in prey for the night, and after a long while, the boogaloos returned to serenely graze upon the silver tape festooning the rotting buildings once more.
39
ON THE MEND
But where did he go?” Eschkov repeated, querulously. His thick, black-rimmed glasses were smudged but he made no move to clean them, and that was disturbing. His whitening hair stuck up in wild tufts, too, and his hands, while not overly filthy, were none too clean either.
“Tracks lead away,” Brood said, heaving himself back in the window-hole with a grunt. “Left his rifle. Found his Tormund. That’s all we know.” His mouth pulled against itself, a thin rattail line of a scar digging down at one end; the rifter, standing right there, didn’t move to help him struggle through.
The first indication of something wrong had been Mako waking up at dawn, well past the time he should have been shaken to begin his watch. At least everyone had a solid night’s sleep.
The rifter, last to wake, peered out the hole that had served them as a window once Brood cleared it, and her thin shoulders slumped. “Probably heard someone calling him.” She shook her dark-fuzzed head. “Ran off, and pop.” Her thin fingers snapped, producing an amazingly large, crisp noise.
Brood, his pants wet to the knee with dew, had leapt out the damn hole to follow the tracks, and only came back when he visibly realized it was probably suicidal to keep going. He glowered at the rifter, who didn’t even glance at him. “Who the fuck is out there?” He hefted Senkin’s Tormund service sidearm, checking the clip with a practiced, efficient motion.
“Only thing that got close was boogaloos.” She pointed at the five-pointed, strangely graceful marks pocking the softened ground outside. They had come very close to the window. “See those? Starfish feet. They don’t eat meat, ever. He probably heard someone and went running.”
Jesus Christ. Barko shook his head. He couldn’t decide which was worse, losing someone right in front of you, or waking up and finding another man gone.
“Who?” Brood’s pale eyes narrowed. His dark stubble was getting ferocious, and his blond tips were dingy. There was a glint to those gray-blue irises Barko wasn’t sure he liked. Brood’s left cheek twitched a little, the flesh jumping with reflexive speed. It didn’t look as if he was aware of it, and that couldn’t be a good sign.
The rifter shook her head. A faint ring of gray had settled at her neck, dust and sweat mixing and collecting in the creases. “Dunno just what. Just know you never follow a voice at night, in here. That’s how they get you.”
“How who gets you?” Brood was having a little trouble with this. The whipsaw of fear and aggression under his voice had hardened.
“Don’t matter.” She turned away, the bright morning sunlight giving her a momentary halo. “Just know not to go following the voices at night.”
“Could Kopelund have sent another team in?” Mako wanted to know.
The rifter stuck her head out the window and inhaled, deeply. Maybe she’d track Senkin down like a bloodhound? She’d survived trips into the Rifts before, goddammit, and now Barko was uncomfortably aware that all she had to do was leave them here. It would take a miracle if any of them made it without her guidance. Every time she stepped away or went to sleep, some-damn-thing else happened. Her mapbag dangled at her side—she even slept with it on, hugging her backpack to her skinny chest.
Brood ran his hand back through close-cropped hair, dew-damp fingers cleaning streaks on his forehead. “Where’d he find another crazy-ass rifter?”
“Town’s crawling with them.” Mako, on his knees beside Morov, peered into the commander’s face. “I think he’s coming to.”
Morov’s eyes opened, slowly. He groaned a bit, shifting on the pile of carpet. The fire, stirred up to provide brief heat, snapped as it munched on a silver-wrapped worm-eaten piece of what had once been a table leg. The stuff festooning the other buildings curled up as it clung to the fuel, bursting with bright-blue flames and small popping noises. “Fuuuuuuck,” he groaned.
Barko couldn’t help himself. A braying laugh broke free, and even the rifter looked at him as it bounced off the lichen-spotted walls. He shook his bald, condensation-starred head, chuckling helplessly. “Speaking for us all.” The chuckle still bubbled inside his chest, and Eschkov gave him a blurred, tremulous smile. It felt goddamn good to laugh, even if he heard the panic in his own voice.
“Hello, you old bastard.” Mako sounded reasonably happy, all things considered. He’d taken off his jacket, and his uniform button-down was damp all down the back and under his thick arms, too. “How the hell are you?”
“Fine,” Morov croaked. One of his hands came up, patted at his breast pocket, probably searching for one of his cigars. “Shit. Where the fuck are we?”
“Still in bumfuck and no end in sight.” Mako’s round face split with a very wide grin. His shoulders came down a bit, relaxing.
“Grand.” Morov blinked a few more times. He stopped, his expression changing, and rubbed at the crust on his eyelashes. “Roll call?”
Mako’s thin eyes shone with the relief of an enlisted man with a clear-cut job. “We’re out Senkin, Tolstoy, and that foreign bastard. Brood’s here, and me. We still have Barko and the goggles.”
Morov nodded, slowly. “Rifter?”
“I’m here.” She stepped, quick and light, and parts of the decaying carpet squished under her boots. They were a lot more supple now, much better broken in. There was some color in her cheeks now, and her lips rested much more easily over those large thermabonded teeth.
“Well, that’s good.” Morov coughed a little, and Barko scooped up the two open medikits. “There was a grenade.”
“Yeah.” She halted near the fire, carefully keeping Brood in her peripheral. “Your leg might be broken.”
“It’s splinted,” Barko amended. “We don’t know if it is broken, but just to be safe. You also caught a splinter through the thigh, it missed the artery. You’re one lucky-ass soldier, Morov.”
“Great.” Morov coughed again. “Leg hurts. What’s our supply situation?”
“Casualties are gone with their loads, except Senkin. We were just about to divvy up his, and what you’re carrying.” The rifter’s expression turned placid, her eyes half-lidding and their muddy darkness impenetrable. “Fellow over there took command.” Her head tipped in Brood’s direct
ion. She scratched dreamily at the side of her neck.
The pale-eyed soldier hadn’t moved from the window. “Sir.”
“Good job, soldier.” Morov shifted again, uncomfortably. “Gonna put you all in for vacation and promotion when we get back.”
Barko decided to err on the side of diplomacy, opening another skinstrip. “That’s a nice thought.”
Morov glanced at him, a ghost of the old familiar sharpness lurking in his pupils. “Optimism, baldy. It’s a virtue.”
Barko swiped the strip over the captain’s forehead, collecting sweat and cells for the chemical-treated paper to taste. “I’d say I prefer science, but that’s what got us into this mess.”
“No, Kopelund got us into this mess,” Brood immediately objected. “This Cormorant thing better be worth it. I better get at least a month of paid time off, or I’m going to bomb the motherfucker’s office.”
“For a month off, I’d bomb anyone’s office.” Mako turned his stretch into an upward-rising movement, gaining his feet with a lurch. The firelight painted his face with a clammy-grease sheen, turning him to an oiled icon.
“Senkin,” Eschkov piped up, plaintive and hollow-sounding. “Where did he go? I don’t understand.”
“Goggles is cracking,” the rifter said, very softly, examining Morov’s face. “Smells like a wall coming. We need to move.”
A wall? Barko decided he didn’t want to know. “Senkin went to take a leak.” He shook his head, glaring meaningfully at her. “Igor, can you get rations for everyone? We could all use some breakfast. And coffee.” Giving him a task would settle him down. Or at least, so Barko hoped.
Morov’s eyebrows rose. “How bad is it?” he mumbled.
Barko didn’t reply, just let his expression do it for him. The rifter kept her mouth shut, but her small eyeroll spoke too. Morov closed his eyes and swallowed, and Barko took the opportunity to peer at the skinstrip.
“What’s it say?” Brood wanted to know, and suddenly, Barko was very sure he didn’t want to tell the man.
“Piss-yellow,” Barko lied. “Our captain here is on the mend.”
He crushed the bright-red crinkle of chemically treated paper in his damp palm, and Igor dropped a few packets of rations, scattering them far and wide. Mako, with a spitting sound of annoyance, rose to help.
The rifter said nothing. Her head was turning just as Barko glanced at her, and she studied Brood intently, with a placid, deceptively peaceful expression.
Brood hawked, spitting a gobbet of dry phlegm out the window. “Okay, everyone. Mouth some chow and get your bladders busted, I want us moving in fifteen.”
Morov, his eyes still closed, said nothing.
40
HEARTBEAT
Midmorning found Sabby crouching at the edge of the half-shattered building, his head up, testing the wind. “Dunno,” he said, finally. “Don’t smell right.”
That made it unanimous. Il Muto was pale, two spots of hectic color high on his knifeblade-sharp cheekbones. He bent his knees, folding down like a grasshopper, and pointed.
Little darting smears of movement in the junkyard, popping from here to there. The fine hairs on Sabby’s arms rose, his skin tightening. Cabra sucked in a breath, and they all tensed. Vetch’s eyelids flicked like a lizard’s; he squinted. His hands curled into loose fists, scarred knuckles broadening.
In the Tumbledown, there would be a general movement away from a rifter who did that. Here, the group pressed closer.
Il Muto pointed at the western horizon. Clouds raced and boiled, high-piled streaks of cottonwool bulging behind an invisible film. Underneath, coruscating dapples fell to earth. The wave was riding at them, not at lightning speed, but still quickly enough to cause concern.
“Metal in there make me twitchy,” Sabby said.
“Yeah.” Vetch’s agreement, soft and total, still carried an edge. “Scuttles?”
“Too small.” Cabra, looking the other direction, made a soft whistling sound through her teeth. “Mipsiks.”
“Fuckbuckle.” Vetch rocked back on his heels slightly. “Never seen ’em do this.”
“Hiding?” Sabby glanced again at the wall in the distance. Those glitters falling to earth underneath could be harmless, but nobody here thought so. Danger scraped along the nerves, shortened the breath, and slid over the body in successive waves. “Which way we jump?”
Il Muto unfolded, digging in his mapper, probably to pull out a strip-and-bob. He didn’t get the chance. A low throbbing noise slid toward them and away, lifting and rattling everything in the junkyard, making dust puff from the ground and dance and rattling the half cavern they’d spent the night in. The building groaned as it leaned even further into itself, its sides crumbling into great sloping jaws.
“Can’t stay here.” Sabby straightened, too, grabbing his backpack—none of them had left their gear near the potzeg-ringed ashes.
The mipsiks flitted between the avenues of junked metal, working closer. Their soft, throaty chuffing might have been mistaken for words. They milled, obviously uncertain, tiny dark eyes ringed with white, their matted, hairy heads rolling on short flexible necks, powerful chests and thick arms giving them an advantage when they dropped to all fours. Some said they were humans who had somehow survived the Event, but Sabby didn’t give a fuck. They weren’t dangerous—they fled rifters and lundies alike, between one blink and the next.
Right now they were apparently weighing whether to dart past the rifters or further into the junkyard. Another thumping grumble came, the wall in the distance pushing air and solid matter in front of it.
“Shit,” Vetch said. “Back up. Back up!”
They did, the four of them moving as a unit, and that decided the mipsiks. The furred creatures, human-sized but much heavier from the muscle rolling on their upper trunks, flowed into the beaten-dirt alleyways between cubes of shattered, stacked metal. They ran past the small group in their tiny bubble of safety, and the rifters all hitched their backpacks on, needing no explanation.
Vetch chose the moment, just like aiming them for the slugwall. Near the end of the long flow, the herd streaming past with foaming mouths and white-rolling eyes, stamping and raising a cloud of choking yellow dust. They screamed, their usual two-part mip-sik, mip-sik lost in a high ribbon of wailing that could have echoed from the shattered walls of any war-bitten or disaster-chewed city.
The rifters plunged into the stampede’s tide, legs pumping, the wall coming behind them. If there was a safe route away, the mipsiks would find it. They ran, Cabra’s beads glittering and the sweat starting on her dark face, Il Muto’s skinny legs almost blurring, Vetch’s head down and his fists pistoning as if he were a child again, and Sabby stumble-trotting until he found his speed, the sourness of terror flushing away the last iota of metabolizing alcohol. He kept his gaze fixed on Cabra’s bright bobbing head, wished he’d eaten something in the last twelve hours, and cursed at the way his lungs immediately began to burn.
The mipsiks cut across the edge of the junkyard, the first ones scaling an ancient wooden fence along one edge. The pressure of numbers was too great for the weathered wood, and splinter-cracking was lost in the noise as the pressure wall, having decided it was time to stop playing, swept straight for them.
A long string of hairy backs—brown, blond, black, reddish-gray—curved as the creatures blindly followed instinct, a thin line of safety under their bare, horn-callused feet. Maddened, they sped up, and the rifters followed, the pressure of the furred river bearing them along. Sabby picked up his feet and the hairy shoulders pressing against his hips and chest carried him. Il Muto, tall and thin, was shaken this way and that by the tide, his head shoved back and forth like a bobble-doll’s. Sabby lost sight of Il Muto as the tide separated around a parked pre-Event car quietly rusting into oblivion.
The mipsiks screamed. Sabby’s feet didn’t touch the ground. It was like swimming, only the current threatened to crack his ribs.
Unwillingly, unhappily,
Sabby the Pooka began to laugh, a high breathless screamy sound, a bright thread above the rumbling and roaring.
He was still laughing when the mipsik next to him, smelling of grass, cloves, sweat, and the broad oily funk of a hairy, healthy creature, foundered. Perhaps its heart had stuttered under the strain, perhaps one of its limbs had trembled at the wrong time, perhaps the ground underfoot had pitched with another one of those thump-rolling waves as the wall bore down.
The momentary gap swallowed Sabby. He went down hard, his ankle creak-snapping as it was caught between the terrified mipsik’s legs. His knee gave too, and his scream—pained this time—was lost in the pounding of hands and knuckles slapping dirt and pavement, throwing up chunks of sod or strange Rift-native plants.
The world turned over and over, light and dark flashing, and the third crack was Sabby’s neck. There was a brief merciless moment of agony, then blackness, and the pounding splintered bone and flesh alike. A red smear, a raw rag of broken bones and lacerated flesh, almost liquid by the time the stragglers of the mipsik herd galloped over him. The weak, the too-young, the too-old mingled bloodstreaks and a heavy reek of shit from terrified sphincters getting rid of every particle weighing the body down. A few minutes later the pressure wall arrived, flooding over the dead and dying, those soft golden glimmers turning out to be crackles of stray energy that popped between grassblades, hard surfaces, ends of broken and exposed bone. The thumping sound was a gigantic fist of some invisible radiation slamming down every few seconds, the golden spackles yelping like distressed metal as it pounded the earth.
Who knows what made the pressure wall turn sharply, veering for the south? The mipsik herd had guessed correctly, or simply known, and veered north to escape, toward the sharp high glitters of downtown under a slice of blue sky smeared with purple streaks, the clouds reacting to the pressure wall further away, catching stray particles. The herd ran for two further klicks before beginning to peel off and melt away, individual bands reasserting themselves and taking smaller rivulets of safety toward hiding places, leaving only two daze-stumbling rifters staggering at the end of a long dark oil-streak of shapeless bodies and splashed, bloody offal. Where the wall had sheared away, there were long fluttering strands of flat golden tape, lifted by the uncertain, flirting breeze. Thin threads of glitter poured through the blood-slick, crawling over the humped, flattened rags of flesh with a soft musical whispering.