Molé looked satisfied. If he could not play with the striking doctor, he could at least amuse himself with her companion. Small consolation but better than none.
“Like hell he can!”
Corpulents and killer alike turned at Ingrid’s shout. Having already surprised herself, she plunged onward lest she think too much about what she was doing.
“Unless Whispr is allowed to stay with me and remain unharmed, I won’t—help you—with whatever it is you have in mind for me.” Looking to her right she mimicked her companion’s voice along with his earlier words. “Don’t hurt him.”
“This is absurd!” Molé protested. “I am entitled to some satisfaction!”
The untouchables conferred. As a tense Ingrid and Whispr looked on, the woman spoke to the assassin.
“Your monetary recompense will be doubled. Consider that your satisfaction.”
As far as Molé was concerned, it was a dismissal. The woman turned her attention to the prisoners. Perhaps at the same time she gave a hidden signal, or perhaps her male associate conveyed unseen instructions with chunky fingers. However the command was transmitted, it resulted in the bands that secured the prisoners’ limbs debonding. Both Whispr and Ingrid promptly collapsed to the floor; two piles of skewed limbs and cramped muscles.
“He lives as long as you cooperate.” As he addressed Ingrid, the fat man’s voice was perfectly flat and devoid of emotion. He might as well have been warning a child that she could keep her teddy bear so long as she minded her manners at the dinner table.
His companion was gazing unblinkingly at the elderly but ramrod straight hunter-killer. “Is there a problem remaining, Mr. Molé?”
“No,” the oldster replied curtly. “No, there’s no problem. I will deal with my disappointment.” Collecting himself, he mustered a smile. “I am, as you say, a consummate professional. The additional funds you have promised will allow me, among other things, to indulge in the diversion you have blocked here.”
“You are comfortable with this?” the woman persisted.
Molé adopted his most avuncular mien. Still smiling, he walked over to where Whispr was now sitting up with his back against the wall trying to rub some feeling back into his legs. At Molé’s approach his fingers ceased their ministrations.
Inclining slightly, even elegantly, forward at the waist, the assassin proffered an accommodating hand.
“I have only been doing my job. In a sense, you have bettered me. In my entire experience this has never happened before. Yet still I extend my hand.”
Whispr’s reply was cold and even. “You tried to kill me. Me and Ingrid. Several times. I watched you kill other people.”
Molé’s acknowledging nod was barely perceptible, as was the mockery in his voice. “How fortunate you have never had to kill other people.” His eyes fastened on Whispr’s. “Have you, riffler?”
Whispr stole a quick glance at Ingrid. Then he reached up and took the assassin’s hand. Aware that the oversize eyes of both obese executives were on his back, Molé pulled firmly until his former quarry stood standing before him, swaying slightly. He eyed the stick-man appraisingly as the latter cradled his slightly bruised fingers.
“I have always felt height overrated. In my profession, anyway, the last thing one wishes to do is stand out.” Turning, he walked over to Ingrid and once again extended a helping hand. Having watched him assist Whispr to his feet without incident, she accepted the reaching fingers.
Yanking on her arm forcefully and with artfully concealed power, he pulled her hard up against him and jammed his aged lips against hers. Those fleshy flaps, at least, remained unmelded. They tasted of a moral and physical decrepitude no biosurge work could purge. His sallow breath rose from lungs that, no matter how skillfully and repeatedly had been maniped, were still reflective of his age. Before she could pull away he gently but firmly bit her.
She yelped and wrenched free of the noisome embrace. Or rather, he let her go. Had he so desired, he could have held her against him no matter how many kicks or punches she tried to deliver. Ever mindful of the heavy-lensed executive eyes monitoring his every move, he had released her. Stepping away, she put the back of her left hand against her mouth. It came away stained crimson. He smiled one last time.
“All the blood I’m going to get today, it would seem. Goodbye, Dr. Seastrom. Whatever the untouchables decide to do to you, consider yourself fortunate.”
With that he turned, strode wordlessly past the pair of hulking decision-makers, and disappeared through the doorway.
Behind him he left a slowly strengthening Whispr and Ingrid facing their podgy, soft-voiced saviors. If savior was indeed the right word. At least whatever happened now they were free of and safe from the perverse and deadly attentions of Napun Molé. Even if they ended up dead it would count as a victory of sorts.
She tried to read the man and his female colleague and failed. Their expressions never varied and it was impossible to tell what their heavily maniped eyes concealed. Judging from their words, not empathy. They had preserved her and Whispr from the attentions of Molé out of a self-interest that had something to do with her being a doctor.
“Please come with us,” the woman requested. No explanation, no elaboration. Under the circumstances Ingrid decided that a thank-you for saving them from Molé would have been superfluous. Not that it would necessarily pass unrecognized. She just suspected it would be ignored.
They were not bound prior to exiting the interrogation room. There was no need. They could not possibly escape the complex without being recaptured. Ingrid almost smiled to herself. It had proven easier to break in than it would be to break out. So confident were the overweight escorts of their prisoners’ security that they led the way down passages and hallways without once looking back to see if Ingrid and Whispr were still following.
Maintaining an unexpectedly fast pace for such a hefty couple, they forced their prisoners to break into the occasional jog to keep up. Along the way they passed dozens of other employees, Meld and Natural alike. A few glanced in the direction of the two oversized striders and their trailing captives, but no one said anything.
“What do you think they want with us?” Whispr spoke as they all but ran down one corridor after another, making remarkable time through the complex.
“I don’t know, I don’t know. Whatever it is, it can’t be worse than what Molé had in mind for us.”
Her companion had reverted to his usual optimistic self. “Sure, you say that now, but when we get to wherever it is that we’re going …”
“Have you noticed, Whispr? I think we’ve been heading north.”
“You think maybe they’re taking us to Research?” He considered. “That could be a good thing or a bad thing. Good if they’re going to explain what their research here is all about.” His voice fell. “Bad if they’re intent on making us part of it.” He hesitated, swallowed. “I really appreciate what you did for me back there, doc. Ingrid.”
She meet his gaze evenly. “Earlier you did the same thing for me, Whispr. Archie.”
“No.” He shook his head firmly. “I screamed on your behalf out of desperation. You had a choice. You put yourself on the line for me.”
She shrugged, suddenly embarrassed. “You’re the only piece of useful equipment I paid for that I’ve got left.”
“Huh,” he grunted. “You’d better check again. I think the warranty’s expired.”
The entrance to Research before which they finally slowed and stopped was different from the one they had tried to bluff their way through previously. But there was a similar desk set off to one side, and the chair behind it was occupied by a guard clad in a uniform identical to the one worn by the all-too-alert young employee who had called them out. What happened next was instructive.
The guard looked up, then immediately and without comment returned his attention to whatever he had been perusing on his box monitor. He did not ask questions of Ingrid and Whispr’s escorts nor did he
seek any form of identification. Recalling previously observed security procedures Ingrid expected one of the massive interrogators to run a retina check, or flash a glowp tag. Their escorts did nothing. Despite this, the massive doorway swung silently inward to admit them. Without being bidden, the two mystified Namericans followed.
Two more security barriers had to be passed. Following the third they found themselves in a series of brightly lit corridors and rooms whose functions Ingrid could not divine despite passing rank after rank of glistening equipment. Men and women, Naturals and Melds, and most notably several more of the exceedingly large people labored intently and often silently at tasks whose purpose remained a mystery to her.
As far as Whispr was concerned he might just as well have stepped through the looking glass into Wonderland. Not a bit of the suddenly bewildering surroundings registered on his experience. The most apropos adjective he could think of to describe what he was seeing was “expensive.”
Directed into a small room they were instructed to sit. The walls, ceiling, and floor were a pure, flawless white, as was the single simple table and several chairs that constituted the only furniture. Their new surroundings made the recently vacated interrogation chamber seem dirty. Ingrid felt as if they had been injected into a square eggshell.
Their escorts did not sit. Waddling to the far side of the room the female began dragging sausagelike fingers over the slick plasticky surface of one wall with all the adroitness of a concert pianist essaying a sonata by Schubert. Wherever her blunt fingertips lightly made contact with the wall, strange glowing shapes appeared in their wake. Swathes of pastel color took on depth and shadow as the nebulous rainbows she conjured became solid. Ingrid thought of languid Greek letters entwining in linguistically incestuous relationships. As to whether the writhing, morphing shapes represented language, advanced mathematics, or something else, she could not have said.
“Real pretty.” Whispr’s comment reflected his characteristic preference for brevity. “If it’s show and tell time I’m afraid our hosts are out of luck: I left all my toys at home.” Not for the first time Ingrid could only sit back and admire his bluster. Raising his voice, he unflinchingly addressed their captors.
“Mind telling us what this is all about?”
By way of reply the male escort came near. Huge dark eyes peered into Whispr’s own. An emboldened Whispr held the stare unblinkingly.
At least, he did until the fat man began to unzip his face.
15
While Whispr uttered a little gargling sound and drew back, Ingrid simply sat and stared. As the man’s skin split down the middle she could see that his female companion was likewise shedding her epidermis. The halves of two humans formed wrinkled piles at their owners’ ankles.
What stood revealed in their wake was not a pair of butterflies.
“Oh shit,” Whispr mumbled. He repeated it over and over. As a defensive mantra it was singularly unhelpful.
The exposé was the more shocking for the fact that it was unpreceded by any hints. Neither their captors’ ventral or dorsal sides had revealed the slightest indication of a seal or seam. Now their skin and clothing lay mounded up around their feet. Or where their feet would have been if they’d had any.
Where the fat woman had been standing, a complex of meter-long golden spires unfolded. Each terminated in points save for several that devolved into smaller prehensile spires that replaced sloughed-off hands and fingers. From the center of the architecturally admirable being a pair of glistening lenses protruded on stalks to contemplate the two stunned Namericans. Light shimmered on this confusion of limbs that appeared to be fashioned of pure buttery gold. Could this motile clash of golden spears still be considered a “her”? Ingrid wondered.
Stepping clear of his mound of shed epidermis and now unnecessary clothing, “her” companion had also straightened up. At least he was composed of flesh and bone, Ingrid concluded as she studied the creature. This notwithstanding the fact that the head seated on the flexible neck consisted of a single spherical multilensed yellow eye, or that both arms terminated in single-lensed eyes of a more familiar sort, or that lenses different from the other two shone from the vicinity of his bare hips. Covered in centimeter-long brown fur, the torso was centered on a sturdy square base from whose underside jutted four legs. A gripping tentacle protruded from each knee.
The female had stepped out of a sketch by Wright while her associate would not have been out of place in a Lovecraftian popent. As a still stunned and speechless Ingrid and Whispr looked on, the mélange of golden spires ambled stiffly over to the table where they sat. Though no mouth was visible, a voice emerged from the clashing, organo-metallic depths. Not only were the words it uttered comprehensible, the vowels emerged in a surge of syntastic liquidity that was positively soothing.
“You are confused. That is to be expected.”
“Are we also expected to be frightened?” Whispr had pushed his chair as far away from the table and the being in front of him as the wall behind him would permit. “Because that’s really what I am.”
Oblivious to any intended irony, the spire being focused her singular gaze on the slender Meld. “That is to be regretted even as it is understandable.”
Ingrid swallowed hard. “What—are you? You’re not, you can’t be Melds.”
“But we are.” Though it was impossible to tell where the great compound orb that topped the male’s body was looking, his multitude of lesser eyes were inclined in her direction. “Though not as you are thinking of us. In the End there are only Melds.”
“I’m not a Meld,” she countered reflexively. “I’ve had a couple of recent manips, but they’re only cosmetic and easily reversed.”
“Baby steps,” observed the female. “For purposes of further dialogue you should know that my name is Sarah.”
Sarah. Ingrid found that she had been invaded by a frightening calm. Sarah the perambulating, intelligent sculpture.
“And you may call me Johan.” The voice of the spire’s companion emerged from somewhere within the thick fur that covered its body.
Ingrid fought to hold on to her sanity. “You said that you’re not Melds as we are thinking of you. What does that mean? What did you mean when you said that ‘in the end there are only Melds’?”
Through a subtle physical shuffling that might have been used to indicate emotion, Sarah realigned her gleaming golden integuments. “We are Melds, doctor, but we proceed from a different starting point. When I say that we are not Melds as you think of us, that is because we are not human.”
Tilting his head back Whispr rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Sure you’re not.” Lowering his gaze once again he looked over at Ingrid. “I don’t know what’s going on here, doc. Maybe this is some elaborate variation on the usual interrogation-of-intruders scenario.” He gestured at the two utterly incomprehensible figures standing before them. “But I do know that these are just melds. Or automatons. Probably designed to jar us out of our mental comfort zones so that we’ll be scared enough to do whatever they want.”
Ingrid was less willing to dismiss the claim out of hand. As a doctor she could not envision how any human body could be pushed, shoved, and crinkled into the quadrupedal eyeful that was Johan, far less into the structural impossibility that was Sarah. Still, where the eyes could be fooled the mind would follow.
“You’re saying that you are—aliens.”
“Indeed.” Johan spoke in the same flat tone he had employed when he had been encased in the camouflaging fat suit.
Ingrid noted with interest that his crowning compound eye was capable of full rotation, like a hematite sphere suspended in a magnetic field. What must it be like, she wondered, to be able to see in every direction simultaneously? What unimaginably elaborate neuroptic connections were required to process so much visual information? For that matter, where in that furry mass was the controlling brain located?
Sarah was clashing toward the door. “Come with us.”
/>
As they followed the two no-longer-disguised shapes, Ingrid found herself trying to make eye contact with several of the other overweight—or perhaps simply oversized—figures they passed in the wide corridor. None glanced in her direction, though several did speak to and exchange gestures with the outré shapes who were leading the way. Did all of the obese shapes contain within them spires or seers? Or were there other forms, other shapes even more extreme than those represented by Sarah and Johan? Were their radically different escorts the purveyors of outrageous lies, nothing more than extreme Melds as a scornful Whispr insisted? Or …?
Aliens? Truly, she thought, what was more alien to human experience than the existence of metastable metallic hydrogen? Except possibly quantum entangled nanoscale cerebral implants. Her head was pounding.
Was Nerens the headquarters for some kind of invasion? Assuming, she told herself as calmly as she could, that more than one kind was possible.
When they reached an oval opening at the end of the corridor, Johan stepped to one side and gestured with an eye-arm.
“Please.…”
It took Ingrid a moment to discern the outlines of the vehicle she was being asked—politely, she noted—to enter. Transparent as a soap bubble and to all outward appearances no thicker, it had a single curving bench but no visible instruments, machinery, or means of propulsion. Whispr held back.
“We go in there,” he murmured, “and maybe we don’t come out again.”
She met his concerned gaze. “Like we have a choice. What alternative do you propose, Whispr?” She gestured back the way they had come, down the length of what was only one corridor among many. “That we make a break for it?” Turning away from him she nodded understandingly at the thing that called itself Johan, stepped into the bubble, and nearly lost her balance. Unexpectedly, the floor gave slightly under her weight, like a transparent spring. Devoid of options, as his companion had coolly pointed out, a wary Whispr followed.
Their escorts joined them. Ingrid had to concentrate in order to be able to see the walls of the oval opening close. There was no door. The surrounding material rippled like a pond that had been struck with a stone as it sealed tightly behind them.