Adam stood in the break room, wondering if being forced to watch the news constituted workplace abuse.
"What none of these people want to admit is," Mahoney was saying, red-faced from heat or anger or both, "the Locust are taking advantage of us, of our genorosity! The UIR doesn't do this much for them."
A dark-haired man, seated on the other end of the couch, nodded. "What would you say the reason is? What's the end-game here?"
"Obviously, the grubs are working with the UIR to weaken us."
The break room was mostly empty, but he didn't want to turn the channel in case one of his colleagues was somehow enjoying themself. Gallop News was stupid, but he wasn't that frustrated—he had other things on his mind.
"I totally agree. Just—just look at all the resources we give them. Food, medicine, even clothes. And they give us, what? Gems? Ha ha! Like we need diamonds, or rubies, or emeralds. We can get those things out of the ground ourselves."
"Right. It screws with our economy. We're too nice to tell them to take care of themselves, and then some people want us to do more for them. What do you want us to do, give blood?"
"It's all part of the extremist environmentalist agenda. We're teaching children, literal children, that humans are evil, so anything inhuman must be good—" The diatribe was suddenly replaced with a soap opera, a shot of a blonde white woman crying—Days of Our Children's Hospitals, or something like that.
"God, even I can't take it," a woman intoned from the sofa. "That's some shit they're on."
Another woman answered, "Yeah, I have a degree in climate science and I only teach my children some humans are evil."
Adam checked the clock on the wall and downed the rest of his coffee, so it would hit him before two. A colonel was coming to the DRA, wanting to speak to him in particular, and he didn't know why. He would need all the help he could get for the rest of the afternoon.
Since it was already five thirty, there was no need to wait around any longer. Whatever little he could do with his remaining time could wait. He was anxious that he might take a wrong turn and need the extra time just to get to the right place.
The DRA was sprawling on the outside. It didn't look it from outside because entrance was only permitted from one side, and the building was longer than wide. He remembered the directions acutely—he'd practically studied them—but had the nagging sensation that he had recalled a detail wrong or something. Despite his years at this place, he didn't often explore the building's guts. Adam's work was done in the first computer lab.
It turned out they had rooms specifically created for clandestine meetings. They were bland, flatly-lit cubes that resembled interrogation chambers but without the mirror. The subconscious association reminded him of his anxiety surrounding the appointment. Suppose he did do something but didn't realize it?
And only a colonel could confront him about it.
Adam sat at a white, plastic table and folded his hands on top of it. He tried not to dwell on assumptions, but still wanted to look innocent and non-threatening. For twenty minutes he sat and worried, and glanced at the wall clock roughly every thirty seconds. When the door opened, he flinched.
Colonel Loomis was a severe, slick-looking man of sixty or so. He entered through the opposite side of the room, turned to shut the door, turned again with his hands clasped behind his back, and took two steps forward. His posture was practiced and precise. This man exuded and demanded exactness.
"Good afternoon, Doctor Fenix," Loomis said, sliding into the empty chair. "Today we are going to have a very important and secret conversation. I trust you're up to date on your security measures."
He hadn't read the manuscripts in at least six months. "Yes. I have to say, colonel, this business makes me uneasy. I have bad nerves, you see. Please tell me now—does this concern my work in any way?"
"No. Why would it?"
"No reason," Adam replied quickly. "It's simply unusual for me to meet with someone of your rank. Rattles the cage, so to speak. It's pretty obvious to me that something big is happening."
"Big. Yes." Loomis drummed a finger against the table. A tic? "What do you think about the Locust, doctor?"
Adam thought of the question for a few serious moments. This meeting didn't need to be dragged on, so he went with his first instincts and opened with a shrug. "They're all right I suppose. I've never met one myself, but my wife Elain works with them in the Outer Hollow. She says they're no meaner or nicer than humans. Always has a funny story about them to tell me."
"You communicate with her? In the Hollows?" Loomis's hand gripped the edge of the table. "How often do you do this?"
"I get letters from her once or twice a month," Adam said. "They have to be cleared by security first, so she can't tell me anything sensitive. All I get are humorous anecdotes and status updates, I suppose you could say."
Loomis relaxed, which meant he took his hands away from the table to settle them onto his lap. "What do you know about Lambency? Tell me how you understand it."
"I know less than Elain, and she's told me even she and her team don't know much." Now that the conversation had taken a technical turn, Adam felt more at ease as well. Nobody could get angry with him over facts. "To my limited understanding, all Locust have Imulsion in their cells, and on rare occasions the Imulsion starts multiplying at an exponential rate. That causes cell mutation not unlike cancer, but of course cancer doesn't make things grow tentacles. The cerebrum gets scrambled by the rampant Imulsion, but some other parts of the brain remain intact, allowing the body to carry on living. After brain death, infected individuals can live for quite a while, controlled by base instinct and Imulsion itself. They're basically glowing zombies."
"You're more or less correct. And you know there's no cure for it."
"No cure, no treatment, they're not even sure about the cause." Adam paused. "Has a cure been found?"
His mind raced down a corridor of thought—the COG in possession of the cure for Lambency, holding it over Queen Myrrah's head to make her do their bidding for a change. Revenge for making them pull the plug on their ever-profitable war machine. Nobody knew how Myrrah had convinced Chairman Dalyell and the other politicians to aid her people, but the resentment was obvious and palpable, hanging over Tyran culture like smog used to hang over Ephyra in the days of fossil fuels.
Loomis shook his head without breaking eye contact. "That's the problem. There is no cure, Adam. There never will be a cure." He pausd to let that sink in. "Locust are going to keep getting sick and dying until none of them are left. The rate of infection is slowly increasing each year. Even the mutations are getting worse."
Drudges used to be rare; Lambent Drones usually retained their shape until death. Now the majority of them reached the more dangerous and grotesque stage of the illness before passing on, and the claws on their tentacles were getting longer. Berserkers were growing bizarre tentacles from their backs as well. Adam knew that much from Elain, but he didn't realize the depth of the situation.
"If there's no cure," Adam started, "then how can we prevent it?" He wondered briefly. Bringing Locust to the surface was absurd, and the public would never agree to it, but being away from Imulsion might help them. There was no cure, but maybe vaccines were possible?
The colonel leaned forward with a predatory glint shining in his eyes. Adam drew back. "We need to be able to kill them, Fenix."
"What?"
"The COG needs a weapon capable of extinguishing the Locust race," Loomis said. "They need to die before they become Lambent monsters."
Adam moved his mouth but nothing came out. The thought was so absurd that his brain rejected it, refused to consider it. But the idea was out there, begging to be discussed. "Genocide? You want me to commit genocide?"
"It's self-defense, doctor." Loomis leaned back, the intensity of his gaze now resting on Adam. "You can do it, can't you? I've seen the things you made for use in the Pendulum Wars. Shame they never saw battle."
His skin was crawling. "Colonel, I'm sorry. You've just asked me to exterminate the Locust race. Did the Chairman ask for this?"
"Yes," Loomis replied, tapping the table again. "The Chairman wants this. Everyone wants this, Fenix. Don't you watch the news at all? People hate the grubs."
"Is that it? Chairman Dalyell's giving up on them to appeal to his voter base?" The world was spiraling. He couldn't have heard what he thought he heard. Genocide? Him?
Loomis's carefully controlled expression appeared to collapse. His features crumpled inward as he rose halfway from his chair. "He, and I, are thinking about what's best for humanity. Those monsters need to be culled for our own safety—and besides…" Control seemed to come back to him and he sat down. "We don't necessarily have to use this weapon right away. We can still attempt to find another solution."
"But I shouldn't get my hopes up." Adam knew he should stop. Arguing with the government never worked. They got what they wanted, every time, and resistance didn't matter in the material way. He could drop dead right now and they would just find someone else, probably at this same agency, and proposition them in the same way, through the same man, in the same room. The Locust were already doomed.
"What do you think we should do, Fenix?" That wild spark lighted in Loomis again, but this time he held the leash tighter. "Do we not have a right to protect our own interests? Our lives?"
"Of course we do. I'm sorry. It's just that this is very sudden and shocking."
"The Chairman will give the researchers more time to find a cure, but at some point we have to make a choice. Think of your sons, Fenix. What if Lambent come to the surface? Ephyra? Your house?"
"I want to protect people, colonel, I truly do. I want to stop the Lambent. If there is no cure…" He sighed. "They're doomed anyway, right?"
"Exactly." Loomis grinned. "Don't think of it as genocide. Think of it as euthanasia."
"A mercy killing. Yes, I understand your rationale now. It makes sense in the worst kind of way."
"They were living on borrowed time when we made contact, Fenix. In another year or two they would have been extinct. We gave them more time than they could have ever hoped for."
"How is this going to work?" Adam asked.
"You're going to get a new lab," Loomis said. "And a new team to help out. Everything's on a strictly need-to-know basis so your assistants won't know the full scope of the project. The Junior Chairman doesn't know. Even the Chairman didn't know until last week."
Adam nodded along. It was a little surprising to hear that; so this was a military operation after all. He wondered if they had to tell Dalyell or if they involved him out of principle.
"Needless to say, don't share details with anyone." Loomis glanced at the wall and stood. "I have other appointments, doctor." He stuck out his hand, and Adam took it as he rose from his own seat. "Your project starts tomorrow. Someone from the agency will acclimate you to your new work area."
Adam rubbed his hand, now acutely sore. "All right. I have to ask. Why me?"
"You're the best engineer we have," Loomis said plainly. "There are a lot of powerful people who like you, Doctor Fenix. I suggest not disappointing them."
Was that a threat? "I'll do my best. For...for humanity."
"For the COG." Loomis nodded, seemingly pleased with himself about something. "Have a good evening, doctor. I'll be in touch." He left, and the room grew cold.
Adam rubbed little circles on the back of his right hand. It throbbed in sync with the pounding in his head. Genocide—euthanasia. What a joke. What a terrible fucking joke.
What made him angriest was that he would do it, and he'd do his best. He hurried out of the DRA, bursting through the door like something was chasing him. Someone staying late tried to greet him as he passed through the computer lab, and he barely mumbled in response. Outside, the air was clear and clean and the sky was starless. Night came early this time of year.
He cut through the lawn and jogged across the parking lot. Row three, that's where he always parked. His black sedan was one of the only cars left and sat under a bright streetlight. Inside, he felt a little safer, isolated from the rest of Sera and surrounded by familiar smells. Jake had left a half-eaten candy bar somewhere and the chocolate permeated the air. Adam took too much comfort in it to be annoyed.
When he turned the car on, the radio started as well. Pop music jarred him from his thoughts for a few moments, until he turned it off. It wasn't the right atmosphere for peppy four-chord songs. He wasn't ready to start driving either, so he just sat there, taking the time to notice the way the car rumbled under and around him. Was it supposed to be this loud?
Was he deflecting? Adam sighed and put both hands on the wheel. Once he got home he could relax, or at least try to, and start climbing this mountain of bullshit that Loomis had heaped upon him. Genocide. Him.
A heavy feeling settled in the center of his belly. That's where guilt gets made, he thought.
The gods called to him beside the river, drawing him towards a dark hole in the wall like a moth to a flame. Skorge felt it every time he came here, unable to look away despite the sick feeling in his stomach. Today, he took a step closer. It felt like a string was being pulled taut inside him, tighter the closer he approached. He knew when it would snap, and what that would do, and he pulled himself away.
He didn't want to hear what they had to say. Behind him, he heard Skain splashing near the bank, and turned to watch. The river was wide and shallow, only a few dozen feet at its deepest, and Skain mostly liked to kick pebbles and watch the tiny fish. It was his favorite way to unwind after a day of work.
"What are you doing?"
"Fishing," Skain said, kicking up an arc of water. Whatever he was trying to catch got away, and he was soaked.
"Bring a rod next time," Skorge chuckled, while Skain trudged back to dry land.
"Not the same." Skain rubbed his wet arm against his tunic and got it wetter.
"I want to go anyway."
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Skorge said. "Tired."
They walked along the bank. Skain looked at him, a brow raised. "Are you getting sick?"
"Nothing of the sort."
They started walking up an incline, away from the river. The rush of water faded behind him and he became more aware of tinier noises in his environment; crawling insects, plant life moving under the insects, and four dull thudding heartbeats. Those were sounds he loved to hear.
When they returned to their quarters, the others were in various stages of preparing for bed. Luce was under his blankets, Tial was changing into pajamas, and Dez was reading in a chair.
Nobody would guess Dez was Skain's brother. Skain was broad and tall, easily the heaviest of them and the only Chimera Kantus. He had grey scales and lacked spurs. Dez was a typical Kantus by comparison, if short and fat.
"Have fun?" he asked.
"I tried to catch a fish," Skain said. "It was too fast."
"You were too slow."
Skorge sat on his bed, his mind buzzing around the day's events and his emotions. He felt vague and distant, like he was viewing himself from far above or below, so the details receded into an indistinct blur of sadness and anger. The space around his hearts was heavy.
He sensed someone staring at him and met Dez's gaze. "Are you all right?" the shorter Kantus asked.
"I'm tired," he said quickly.
"He's been tired for a while," Skain said unhelpfully.
"Maybe you're getting sick, Skorge."
Tial moved towards him swiftly. The Drone was going to be a doctor before an infection took his voice, and his training still showed through in such moments. Skorge had no chance of escape.
"I'm fine," he muttered, drawing away from a thermometer Tial had produced from somewhere. "If I haven't improved by morning I will submit to your examination. Right now I just...need rest."
The mound of fabric under which Luce had nested himself rustled, and a skinny grey arm, his only arm, shot up. "Can you examine me, dear Tial, I feel horrible."
Tial approached with thermometer in hand. Luce had his temperature, hydration levels, and eyes and mouth quickly assessed. When Tial nodded, indicating all was normal, Luce looked like he'd received bad news.
"Are you sure, because I really do feel quite sick."
"I take it Antak's not working tomorrow," Dez said.
Luce glared. "You don't know what it's like, dating someone in a different department! Our schedules hardly ever sync up!"
"I'm in the same department," Skain said, feigning offense. "I'm right here!"
"Yes, I adore you for that, but I need to see both of my lovers from time to time…"
"Like simultaneously? Not simultaneously, right?"
Luce glared, and Skain and Dez laughed. Skorge relaxed, glad for the distraction.
"Hey, what if I punched you?" Skain sounded worryingly serious.
Luce regarded him. "That's tempting. Tial, how badly injured does someone have to be—"
"No!" Skorge scowled at Skain, who grinned back. "Just take time off."
"But I want tickets."
"He wants to complain," Dez said. "It is his favorite hobby."
"You louse! You big-mouthed little dick-mite!"
"None of that invalidates my claim."
The mattress sank as Skain sat down. "I don't think the river's that much fun anymore either."
Skorge sighed. "It's not the river, not exactly." Dez and Luce were throwing verbal daggers at each other, and Tial's attention was somewhere he couldn't guess. He stood and moved to the window, beckoning Skain to follow. Outside, on the other side of a thin alley, was another lodge house. Most of the windows were blinded, but he could see shadows moving here and there. "Do you remember what I told you about my power?"
"The important things. You huff Imulsion and see worms and they say crass things at you."
"That's one way to put it…" Skorge paused. "There's an Imulsion vein near the river and I can...feel...the gods call me when I'm near. They sense me, or I sense them. It's been happening on all our walks for the past week."
Skain leaned against the wall next to the window. "So you think the worms have a message for you? After all these years?"
"I don't understand how they think or why they consider things important," Skorge said wearily. "I don't want it. I don't care what it is. They can find someone else to bother."
"Why don't you want it?"
"They never say anything nice, for starters. It's always death."
Skain stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Doesn't that make it more important to hear, then?"
Those were the words he didn't want to hear—a logical, irrefutible argument for why he should disregard his personal feelings. Skorge looked away. "It's not that easy. You know the story."
"Yeah, and I know it's not true. I also know you know it's not true."
"I don't want it." Skorge pressed his forehead against the cool glass, a soothing sensation. "I don't want to know when and how we're all going to die and what's going to kill us. There's never anything I can do but watch while it happens and I hate it. Why even show me? What fucking good does it do? I hate it. I hate it."
He hadn't expected to say so much, but now he was spent. He glanced at Skain, not knowing what to expect, but he had a plain expression.
"Well, I don't know what to tell you," he said.
"Thank you, anyway." Skorge turned back to the room. The noise had died down, though Dez and Luce were still having an animated discussion about something. The debate went on until they admitted they were too tired to keep it up, and for legal reasons, both had to admit this at the same time.
Skorge lay back to back with Skain, staring out at the other beds. The only sounds were Luce's snoring and Dez turning the pages of a book. Night was always like this, peaceful and secure, but Skorge was unsettled and couldn't enjoy it. This quiet serenity could end in the blink of an eye, in a flash of flame and crashing sound.
He turned over and looked at Skain, perhaps the most precious and inexplicable part of his life. They had been together so long, and they were such a constant presence in each other's lives, that Skorge sometimes forgot the force of his love. It scared him to have something he desperately needed to protect.
Skain was right; he needed to hear what was in the cave, if just to stop himself from going insane. He pushed the blanket off and jumped out of bed, all the bundled energy coming out of him at once. By the time Skain was rousing, Skorge was halfway through the door.
"What's happen," Skain mumbled.
"I'm going for a walk, don't worry," Skorge whispered, glancing at the sleeping forms of his friends. Only Skain had been disturbed.
"Mmma...kay."
The halls were empty, and no sounds came from the other lodge rooms. Skorge forgot to pace himself, and was breathing deep from exertion before he got to the bottom floor. He forced his stride to slow and shorten, despite the new feeling of urgency that had grabbed him.
Day and night in the Hollows looked exactly the same, but they sounded different. Nobody was out, and most animals were asleep. The air grew cooler as the Imulsion inside the tunnels constricted into a more compact state. Locust, as a result, had evolved to get sleepy in response to cold. Skorge felt worse the longer he walked, but pushed himself to the crest of the hill, then down the path.
The hole was still there in the side of the cliff, beckoning him. He stopped at the edge where the dimness turned into darkness. Instead of being anxious, he was empty—devoid of sensation, like he had accepted that he was imminently dead. That could be the case, but he wouldn't know until he was told. Whatever happened, he had himself to blame.
Skorge took the first step, then the second, and they became easier from there. He stopped when the darkness became absolute to let his eyes adjust. Dull gold light came from somewhere deeper in the tunnel, and he followed it. His insides were twisting up and he found it hard to breathe long before he smelled the Imulsion.
The tunnel abruptly narrowed and it was thanks to his small frame that he slipped through into a larger chamber. This area was still just big enough for him, and the Imulsion vein. It dripped out of the wall like a syrup and gathered on the ground, glowing so fiercely that his eyes watered. He didn't look away.
Imulsion had a living smell, though he didn't know how he knew what life smelled like. As he stared, it appeared to move under its own power, adding to the sensation that he was in the presence of something with a rudimentary mind. The stuff was inside him, inside all of his people, and seeing it outside of a Locust body was almost disturbing. He remembered seeing a picture of a preserved brain in a book, once, and feeling the same way.
There were plenty of reasons for Imulsion to bother him, and many memories it could have pulled from the depths of his mind. He was glad it chose innocuous fluff. He still saw backwards if he got too close to fire or heard something like gunshots. This would have been a lot worse if Imulsion made him see backwards instead of forwards.
Skorge tore a sizeable chunk out of his tunic, knelt in front of the vein, and held the fabric against the leak. The Imulsion was dully warm and took a while to soak through the cloth. He held the saturated rag in his hands, staring at it with a mixture of confusion, incredulity, and dread.
There was no other way to do it but suddenly. He hit his own face with enough force to hurt and dug his talons into his skull, preventing any accidental drops. It was still twenty seconds before he inhaled, inviting the fumes inside instead of letting them passively permeate his sinuses.
He shut his eyes, wary of a growing dizziness and nausea. As he waited in the darkness he lost his sensation of up and down, of his limbs, and of the world. Nothing existed. That was the first step.
He knew to keep breathing, and to not move even though he had no awareness of his body parts. The world had disappeared, but a new one was taking its place.
It was a vast, seamless expanse of Imulsion. He screamed, because for a second he thought there were Lambent everywhere, Lambent crawling, Lambent on him—but it was just Imulsion, and he'd forgotten this part but he was okay. Nothing was going to hurt him or could hurt him, in this place, except mentally.
There was no sense of foreground or distance, but he knew ahead of him was an emptiness filled with glowing fumes. The great worm appeared out of that fog, Their head descending, Their mouth gaping, as if to eat Skorge.
"Death," They spoke. Their voice came from inside him, from the ocean, surrounding and filling him with a noise that was like the earth sliding against itself. "Death comes again. See. See for your people."
Lambent were in Upper Nexus. Skorge watched, bodiless, from somewhere above the city. Images and sensations flashed through him so quickly, in such a disjointed fashion, that he couldn't tell what was going on. It was like his mind was processing poison. Buildings burned. People died. He was terrified, running for his life, but he was also growing cold because he was dying on the street, and he was screaming for someone to save him and trying not to scream because they would hear. Lambent were in Nexus; that was all he could grasp.
The Destroyer left his mind, ending Their message by reinforcing the salient point. They let the image of a Lambent Wretch running through an Upper Nexus street linger in his mind, and They had to know kindness, for They hadn't shown him a single Drudge.
"Fight or die," the Destroyer said. "Destroy fate. This you can do."
Then it was over. The endings were always abrupt, his spirit being shoved back into his body without time to acclimate. He had collapsed, laying with his back against the cave wall and the rag over his face. Immediately he swiped it away, not wanting a second vision. One sufficed.
Equally without warning, Skorge started crying. Nexus was going to be destroyed. Where would they go? How many would die? Would the humans accept them on the surface?
Destroy fate, he thought. That was what the Destroyer told him. They told him the future wasn't guaranteed—which was a first. A thrill went through him and he stood up so fast he got dizzy. Once it passed, he left the cave, more scared than ever but grimly determined.
Nexus could be destroyed, but it didn't have to happen. For once in his miserable life he could help people. He could make things right. His brothers would see him for who he really was, not the monster they created in their minds...
All he had to do was get out of Lower Nexus and talk to RAAM.
