"Just to set your mind at ease," said Coraline, after a short pause which had followed Wybie's explanation for the equations and lead containers, during which Wybie's expectant expression had started the slow drift towards 'pensive', "This isn't my 'How do I hit my darling husband hard enough to make all the crazy fall out' sort of silence."
"That's a relief," said Wybie. "I don't like that silence."
"This is my 'My darling husband might be onto something good, and how do I use this and get help from the psychephage Court at the same time' silence."
"Which you so rarely get a chance to use." Wybie drummed his hands on his legs, perched on one of the uncomfortable metal chairs that littered his workspace. "And … ah, what are you thinking about the Court?"
"They're allies … but only if I annul the Concord. Or amend it so that it's useless."
"And that's not a price you want to pay."
"I don't. And …"
She left the sentence hanging there for a brief moment, while she marshalled her thoughts, beating them into something coherent out of the various nagging questions and doubts that had occurred to her since she'd left the Court, since her anger and fear and desperation had had time to settle and simmer down to something that didn't rule her.
How badly did she need the Court?
Could they take on Tantibus already with what they knew?
Was it possible … or even probable, that Tantibus's very nature was making her panic and overestimate its threat?
From what she'd experienced at close-quarters and heard and inferred, there was no doubt that the fear-eater was a monstrously powerful psychephage; a swift shapeshifter, unnaturally strong, cunning, capable of enduring massive injury, and running on the power of what had to be hundreds or thousands, if not millions, of souls hunted down the millennia.
But it was hurt by iron, like any other psychephage. It had bled white fire, and had struck out in pain. It wasn't some dark unknowable. It ran by laws the Department of the Supernatural had spent decades researching. If they would face any problem, it would be in mustering the sheer firepower to engage it. And lo and behold, Wybie was producing something she could only think of as a ferrobomb, and if that wouldn't be enough firepower, then nothing could.
The phylax in the Court had even given her the information (assuming it was trustworthy) that would help them pin it down and force a confrontation. It would just be a matter of finding the greatest concentration of the Tantibalics, wherever they may be.
They could very well win with what they already had, and the Concord needn't be annulled.
They could.
But could was a treacherous word, that would inspire false hope and infer conclusions that didn't have much of a chance of occurring.
A hundred thousand deaths, ten thousand of them on her own doorstep. The destruction of half of Capitol Hill. Smoke staining the air black. Bodies piled in blood-slick streets. All born of one night.
She couldn't take that risk. Not for another night. Not for what Tantibus and its lackeys would gleefully do again. Because if she did, then there would only be more bodies, and it would be her fault for not grabbing every weapon she could, no matter the cost.
What about the Concord?, said another part of her. Take it away, take away the fear of retaliation from the psychephages, and you'll undo everything you ever worked for. Children will die in the cold and dark, hunted by monsters. Think back to the Beldam. Think back to the ghost-children. Would you wish that on another child, one without your luck? Because then they'll be your fault.
She pulled herself away, and tried to evaluate her options and outcomes rationally. Trying to trick the Court wouldn't work; any deception-eating horkos would be able to pick up on the lie immediately. So what did that leave her with?
One: she kept the Concord, and with good luck, they'd destroy Tantibus before anyone else had to die. Assuming incredible luck, and that everything they knew was true, and that the Tantibalic Tendency didn't have some game-breaking cards left to play.
Two: she kept the Concord, and they'd have no such improbable good fortune, and thousands more would die.
Three: she dropped the Concord, and, assuming that the psychephages would spell the difference between victory and defeat, they'd destroy Tantibus, and then the psychephages would hunt as they always had, and the piles of bodies would simply be shifted to the shadows…
Four: she thought of something new and brilliant. Tantibus would die as quickly and horribly as possible, everyone would live in harmony happily ever after, and nobody else would die.
It wasn't an inspiring selection.
She badly missed Maria. She'd be able to evaluate the mess, infer things Coraline couldn't, and maybe stumble across some out-the-box solution.
"…And I don't know," she confessed to Wybie. "I don't see any options that won't demand a sacrifice I'm ready to make. There's no easy out."
Wybie bit at his lip. "I don't know … I don't want everything we fought for to be thrown away because of one emergency … but if there ever was an emergency that demanded it, this would be the one." He sighed and rubbed at his beard. "I don't think the Court could be trusted to help. They could just get your promise, promise help in return, and then leave us hanging. Or stab us in the back at the worst possible moment."
"I know that could happen, but … I don't think it's as likely as you think. The vibe I got from them was that I was their best chance for actually killing Tantibus. All they were disagreeing on was whether betting on me was worth the risk." As she said the words, Coraline didn't bother hiding the uncertainty in her voice. For all she knew, the Ambassador was tricking her again, and had roped all the rest of the Court into the deception.
But that was unlikely. If the ultimate goal of the psychephages was to see her dead, then she would have died in that chamber.
Whatever the situation, all she knew was that she should follow her own advice from earlier.
"Damn this, damn the Court, damn everything. I'm going to be the President and leave this for now. I'll learn more about what's going on, I'll see what picture the CIA and others have built up of the Tantibalics and Tantibus. I'll make the decision on the Court once I know what I'm dealing with." She looked straight at Wybie. "Do you have everything you need to make the ferrobomb?"
"The what? The … Ooh, I like that name, and I'll steal it with your permission. And not here, no." He scratched the back of his head. "We need to transfer to Nevada, to facilities there that'll have the supplies we need. We've made contact with them. We're ready to go ahead with this … If you think it'll be worth it."
He was reluctant to say it now that the moment had come, it was apparent. He didn't relish leaving Coraline's side in the midst of this affair. And Coraline would be lying if she said she didn't want him to stay either. But if their choice was their own happiness versus placing one more arrow in their quiver against Tantibus, then that was no choice at all.
"Let everyone else involved know that the President approves, that she'll see that they get whatever they need, and that if she has to readjust the budget to cover the costs of all the overtime they spend on this, then she won't be complaining in the slightest. And you…" She faltered, briefly. "You keep yourself safe while you work. You'll bring ferroshot?"
"And clean underwear and sunscreen and I won't talk to any strange men and … ow! It was a joke. A nice, simple, levity-inducing joke." His put-upon pained indignation faded as he rubbed his shoulder. "Of course. And you'll do the same?" His voice betrayed real fear. He knew the risks she'd risk by staying here in Washington (risks which, on account of the human condition, he hadn't considered as applying to himself while in the city).
She answered by pulling him towards her, and slightly downwards as he stooped, and kissed him.
It went on for several long moments, carrying all the meaning they wished to put into it.
"Seriously, stay safe," said Coraline, after it had broken off. "Get yourself killed, and I'll have you reanimated just so I can do it myself. Properly."
"I love you too."
Through the iron-grey sky, a jet cut a blue-white trail.
It, along with six others in the next few hours, three of which were decoys, would, through different and eclectic routes, deliver whoever was involved in the ferrobomb project to Nevada before the day was out.
Wybie was aboard the first one, but Coraline didn't watch it leave. She had other things to keep her busy.
Reports of more sporadic attacks had begun to filter in from the country and the rest of the world, aftershocks after the first savage wave. They were small, inasmuch as anything with a casualty count numbering in the dozens could be called 'small', but enough to keep people afraid, the military on high alert, and services nationwide tied up. Coraline had to stay afloat in those reports, to make sure that National Guard commanders were kept alert and ready, and to continue broadcasting constant reassurances, commiserations, and promises of retaliation that grew stale on her tongue after the fourth or fifth telling.
All diplomatic visits had been indefinitely put on hold. The supply network that connected Earth to Luna and Mars had been suspended after a series of strikes at the main spaceport, but communiques from the various governors of America's and other countries colonies had contained assurances that they had years' worth of stockpiles, and that they could hold out.
At least half of the world's nations had escalated their terror threat levels as high as they could go, and had coupled that with a massive outpouring of energy from their intelligence services. Several rooms away from Coraline's makeshift office, the heads of the CIA, Club de Berne, and Brazilian Intelligence Agency were updating their shared pool of suspects, possible locations, details both concrete and dubious. Every half-hour, another report would find itself on Coraline's desk regarding their progress.
Her own meeting came well into the evening, via an en-masse televised call with the heads of state of every member of the United Nations, forced to the makeshift call by the necessity of speed and the not-unincidental gutting of the United Nations Headquarters during the attacks on New York. Each leader convened, discussed, and passed a resolution that officially declared the Tantibalic Tendency an enemy of every nation, all within the space of half an hour, and all the while with every one of their colleagues flickering before them in a great compound image of hundreds of faces.
It wasn't the first time in the history of the organisation where it had stood totally united. But such times were infrequent enough that they deserved recognition nonetheless.
Sleep was merely a pleasant memory for Coraline by the time the call and her report of its contents to Congress had finished, and her coffee-frayed nerves were on edge by the time the clocks turned towards the evening.
It was only with supreme effort that she managed to not open fire on Mr Moloney when he knocked and entered, a tense and nervous look on his face.
"What is it?" asked Coraline, her voice sharp as she raised her head from where she leaned on her desk, papers and tablets fanned before her.
"It's the FBI, ma'am." Moloney's bloodshot eyes and tangled hair betrayed his own exhaustion, which he kept concealed as well as he could beneath a brisk and controlled demeanour. "They were combing through Ground Zero for the attacks in Washington. And they found an alive Tantibalic."
"They what?" Speeches and psychephages and resolutions and ferrobombs were dismissed for the moment. Coraline grabbed for her coat and focused on Moloney like a hawk, while part of her mind started picking at the implications of the discovery. "How?"
"He surrendered to them. Just walked out of the rubble and handed himself over to them. He's being interrogated in a few minutes. The Director wants your presence at the remote viewing."
"State your name."
The voice was semi-mechanical, modified and given a cold and intimidating timbre from the speakers it passed through. The agent conducting the interrogation did so from another room, and he in turn was watched from a closed-off viewing chamber in which Coraline, assorted Directors, and military staff and cabinet secretaries watched and waited.
The agent's voicepiece was at one end of a reinforced and wire-hardened interrogation cell, enclosed by four pale and sterile walls, holding only a table, a restraining chair, and the Tantibalic prisoner.
"I don't have a name," said the prisoner mildly in an accent not quite placeable, a fresh-faced and pleasant looking young man, stripped of his armour and wearing dull orange prisoner fatigues. "Not since I became part of the Tendency."
"State the name you had before you joined the Tantibalic Tendency."
"I don't know. When you join, it takes memories from you. It reaches inside and … takes things. It tears them away and leaves only a few things that it needs. It does the same to everyone. It shows us the truth."
There was a shiver amongst the onlookers. The Tantibalics' eyes were an unfocused pale blue, and they stared at the cuboid voicepiece with a detached regard.
"By 'it', what do you refer to?"
"To Tantibus. The one we serve. The psychephage who attacked Washington yesterday, along with my brothers and sisters."
"From where were you recruited by the Tantibalic Tendency?"
"I cannot remember." He considered briefly. "I held a weapon and was given orders for a time. I may have been a soldier, but that is not certain. Nor can I remember why they chose me."
"What was your role within the Tantibalic Tendency?"
"The same as any other. To feed Tantibus. I operated a motorgun at Sabirabad when the populace were in the middle of a festal parade, along with several others from the Tendency. I planted a bomb on the airship carrying a school group from Cape Town to the Bushveld Reserve. I left our cards in the site of an attack by the Fourth Reich Remnant in Kaliningrad, so that the Tendency would take the credit. I was among the task force chosen for Washington."
"Why?" came the growl from the interrogating voicepiece.
"I don't understand the question," said the Tantibalic.
"Why are you and the rest of the Tantibalic Tendency acting to feed Tantibus?"
"Because if we do, the end will come all the more swiftly and gently."
"Clarify."
The man shifted in his restraints. "The world is growing brighter. We are learning more, and with our knowledge, we take away our fear. We don't fear the darkness anymore. We know how to deal with our old terrors. Disease, famine, even, in time, each other."
A note of something beyond cool detachment entered his voice. "And if we lose our fear, then what world would that leave for Tantibus? It knew what we were achieving, and it knew what it had to do."
Emotion edged onto his face, and he raised his head, revealing eyes wide with fervour and white with horror. "It will tear the world apart. It brought together the Tantibalic Tendency, claiming us one by one, uniting our resources and skills. And it will use us and its own power to turn humankinds own weapons upon itself, to sow fear and discord. It will burn everything and leave cold ashes behind it. It will reach for every source of light and snuff it out until all we see and remember is the darkness! It will see us turn on each other amidst its terror!" His voice had risen to a shout, and tears ran unheeded down his cheeks.
His head bowed again, and a single sob racked his frame before he collected himself.
"It will hunt across the remains of this shattered world forever," he whispered. "And we … we cannot … All we can do is help it, so the end will come as painlessly as possible. So that we might keep something left of old humanity, even as it rules once more."
Silence from the interrogator. Then, "Why are you being so forthcoming? Why are you telling us all of this?"
"Because it left me behind," said the Tantibalic. "Because it told me to."
"I don't understand," said the new Director of the FBI, frustration clear in her expression. "Why deliberately leave an agent behind to reveal your motives and goals. And even if it was intended to mislead us, what could it have intended us to do?"
The Director, Bernstein, Secretary of Defence and Coraline were gathered in Coraline's office, arranged around the metal desk at the room's centre. Clocks ticked and monitors flickered on the grey walls around them. Coraline's arms were folded on the desk in front of her, brooding over the prisoner's words.
"It might be trying to set up a situation where it could bring us to a negotiating table," Bernstein suggested. "Work what more terror it can, and then send us a message to the effect of 'Hey, that was a fun war, but let's not take it all the way, let's just agree to send me a couple of hundred human sacrifices per annum, your choosing, and we'll say no more about it'."
"It knows we'd refuse that offer," objected the Secretary of Defence.
"We don't know that we'd refuse that. We don't know what it might be able to do to get us to the point where we'd consider that a good deal."
"Maybe it's trying to send us down a tangent. To get us to waste our efforts on preparing for all-out war, but to just go for funds, or some sort of coup," said the Director.
"Not likely," said Coraline quietly, drawing all attention to her. "Tantibus is clearly calling the shots, and it wouldn't value our funds in the slightest. And it wouldn't gain anything from a coup that it couldn't have gotten through other, simpler means."
She unfolded her arms and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Let's think about what it wants. It wants to feed. It wants a situation where it can feed on human fear and souls as much as it likes. And strange as it seems, I think it wasn't concealing anything from us with that prisoner. It wants us to know we're fighting a war of annihilation."
"Why? How would that serve it?" asked Bernstein.
"Because it believes it can win," replied Coraline. "And it knows that we'll throw all the effort we humanly can into stopping it, and it believes that we can do nothing to stop it. And the more we fail, the more we'll panic. The more we panic, the more effort we'll expend, and the more we'll begin to jump at any shadow, no matter how much it damages us to do so. And if we begin to fight amongst ourselves over how to take it down properly after another failed attempt, all the better for it. We'll just have more to fight, and more to fear, and we'll fall all the faster."
The other three looked more than a little scared by the notion, and Coraline decided not to inadvertently do Tantibus's job for it.
"But we're not going to fall, or fail in killing it," she said, injecting anger and confidence into her voice. "We know we can hurt it. The ferrobomb project will give us something it couldn't have expected or prepared for. And we will be careful. We won't give into desperation or panic and play to its tune."
"We're already sitting in a good position," said Bernstein, his face relighting with a little more shared confidence. "The UN resolution ensured that the security for all the old stockpiles is to be tripled, incorporating personnel failsafes to minimise any damage one or even a few people could do. If it was planning to seize anything from those, it'll find itself frustrated."
"And we're not going to divide ourselves any time soon," added the Secretary. "Every nation in the world's sworn to hunt down the Tendency. Unless they've got any allies or proxies they can call upon, they're isolated."
"And we're approaching reasonable estimations of their strength," said the Director. "We don't think they could have any more than a couple of thou…"
Something flashed.
A television screen turned to some major news channel, resting on a table behind the Secretary, had suddenly flared with static, drawing the room's attention, while its quiet speakers began filling the room with a low humming.
"What's…" started Coraline, before the static resolved itself into a motionless sepia image, at the bottom of which was inscribed in elegant lettering – Public Service Announcement.
Below a large and stylised TT.
The humming stopped, and words too soft to discerned began emitting from the speakers.
"Turn it up," hissed Coraline, motioning at the Secretary, who was closest to the television. "This had better not…"
"…I repeat, this is the message to the people of the United States from the Tantibalic Tendency," came the deep, sonorous voice from the television. Coraline all but jumped out her skin when she heard and recognised it.
Tantibus.
What the hell was … How the hell could they even …
"This prerecorded message has been placed into one of your greatest communication channels. This message is also making itself known to other nations in other languages. Rest assured that in knowing its contents, you stand with all other peoples."
"You doubtless know or have experienced the attacks made on many great cities during the night preceding. And you doubtless want answers, explanations, or, failing those, vengeance."
"I understand your horror and distress. Understand it all too well. And trust me when I say that I would have done anything before being forced to those actions. But forced I was, and now I must see these matters to their conclusion, in the same way I have yet taken. Unless I receive help from others."
"Listen now. Your government, those you call your leaders, those who promise safety, and those who promise a better day, have failed you. They invite insurrection and death upon their own people. They co-operate and kowtow to demons that feast on humankind's souls. They are corrupt, worthless, enemies that I share with you."
"Rise up. Overthrow them with the only thing they will respect – fire and blood. Execute those that would call themselves your betters, more knowledgeable, more insightful, for they would do the same to you. Come to my banner, and I shall help and reward you and your kin, and never have to raise a finger to another innocent."
"Purge yourselves of those you mistrust, and rightfully so – and help me build a better world."
The note of melodious and vicious satisfaction that had entered its voice in the last sentence made Coraline's skin crawl, made her despise it all the more. The message stopped there, cutting back to a confused newsreader – but then immediately cut back to the static before the sepia image with a lurch of screeching humming.
Bernstein breathed out.
"Surely they can't imagine that that message will incite any real reaction-" started the Director, before Coraline spoke, her voice carefully level.
"Send whoever's free to check whatever sending stations for the channel might be compromised," she ordered the Secretary. "I trust the American people to remain united now. Nobody outside the truly desperate will act on that. It was a lie. Another piece of twisted manipulation." She knew that in her gut, that this, at least, was something made to try and divide humanity. But she knew the psychephage had underestimated humankind.
For the moment, hissed her inner cynic. Fail once now against Tantibus, and die at the hands of whoever gets that first lucky shot.
She sat back in her chair, and while the message repeated and calls started coming in and she went through whatever answers her mind could bring to bear, she desperately wished for a single moment's rest.
