Fix (17 page)

Ruth brought her to a long table set with a single tureen of meaty stew;
this is the kids' table
, Aliyah thought. The stew was covered in a dark black crust, sitting atop a Sterno can, a bubbling vat of beans and sausage that quivered with this area's kinetic bleed-off.

Aliyah looked around guiltily; only she, Ruth, and the locals had stew. The other Unimancers had that unappetizing gray fluid.

“Don't worry.” Ruth crumbled her rosemary into the stew. “My family will drink the fluid – it's nutritionally balanced – but when I eat this cassoulet, they'll plug into my tastebuds. You'll see. But before we eat, we hold the daily memorial service.”

Ruth let that last sentence hang.

Once Ruth had determined Aliyah would give her no reaction, a heavy quiet swept over the room. The locals lowered their heads, the parents shushing their children.

“
Consensus
,” the Unimancers whispered, bringing their clenched fists up over their hearts.

“Sean Patrick Kelly,” they recited.

A respectful pause. Then a beautiful Californian-looking housewife said, in a gravelly Texan accent:

“Ben Franklin's truth: get a man to do you a favor, and he will like you more.”

A sickly-looking Mexican woman nodded as though some ritual had been completed, then said in the same male voice:

“Consumption of coffee gives people a mental boost that makes them easier to persuade. Give free coffee in meetings when you can – but don't drink it yourself.”

A butch leather dyke with a buzzcut spoke, in the same accent: “The kinesthetic internal modality of proprioception can be hijacked to lead the customer to a conclusion they were already arriving at mentally.”

Aliyah tried to memorize each statement to tell Daddy later – but it became apparent they were reciting Unimancer sales tips, leavened with random facts like, “When accessing shared memories of rifle shooting, remember shoulder pressures are variable.”

This didn't seem like a memorial service. More like a disjointed seminar.

Ruth leaned over to whisper into Aliyah's ear: “Sean's gone, but we can each store something he wanted us to remember.”

“So you live on forever inside the…”

Aliyah wanted to say “hivemind,” but maybe that term was impolite. Nor did it feel polite to note that these memories seemed impersonal, uniformly clustered around salesmanship – though she found it reassuring that people seemed to retain their own obsessions inside whatever passed for the Unimancer shared space.

“Do you live forever inside of each other's memories after… death?”

Ruth swallowed. “No. That's been… it's been done. It doesn't end well.”

Aliyah still wasn't certain this ceremony wasn't a trick – but Ruth's distress seemed very real.

“I know this seems a little abstract to you,” Ruth explained. “But… this is… it's a thin afterlife, I guess. Bits of you float around in us, and some of your memories become useful, and take root. But it's not you. You wouldn't want it to be you.”

Ruth reached for a glass of water, but her hands shook. The Unimancer next to her picked up the glass and poured it into her mouth.

“Do you choose what memory you get?” Aliyah asked.

Ruth's face paled. “I'm stuffed with memories. I'm
overflowing
with them.”

“Stuffed? How can you–”

An elderly black Unimancer with her gray hair in a bun tapped Aliyah on the shoulder, shaking her head. Ruth rubbed her temples, her lips twitching, like a crazy person arguing with themselves.

Aliyah longed to comfort her. Ruth felt like a missing piece of Aliyah's puzzle; Aliyah had been accelerated into 'mancy as part of a terrorist's botched plan, and however Ruth's magic had been called forth, it had scarred her as surely as it had Aliyah–

Sean's salesman techniques mutated into a list of folks he'd rescued from the broach. The Unimancers who spoke for him seemed especially proud of these, and Aliyah realized that yes, while Sean Patrick Kelly had started out as a salesmancer, saving lives had become his real obsession.

“Kara Owl,” the Unimancers recited before sharing Kara's divination techniques, followed by her memories of rescuing a family from a broach near Bruges. “Richard Shealy,” who had much to say on the chatoyancy properties of gems, and had saved three rogue 'mancers who would have overloaded on flux.

And then “Cassandra Khaw.”

Silence.

“…did something go wrong?” Aliyah whispered.

Ruth mashed her face into her palms. “…some don't have a lot to say, you know?”

“She's got to have
something
.” Aliyah felt foolish – she'd never considered a Unimancer's passing as anything more significant than trimming a toenail. Now she knew Unimancers had memories, seeing one of them ignored at their funeral was worse than death. “You have to remember her.”

“She's in here,” the black woman assured her, answering as though Aliyah had spoken to her – which Aliyah supposed she had. “But
we
are larger than
this
. We are thousands, spread across Europe, clustered next to the worst rips and the remaining population centers. Trust us, Aliyah – we remember our dead, because no one else will.”

They left a respectful gap to mark Cassandra's demise, then: “Ramez Assad,” a neurochemist who'd talked a man out of suicide. “Sara Harvey,” a clothier who'd made fitted tops for breast cancer survivors.

Aliyah tapped her feet nervously. With each name they spoke, she became certain the Unimancers would name “Malik ‘Pee Wee' Reles.”

That had to be the drugs talking. Pee Wee wasn't even a 'mancer. He'd been a small-time gangster who'd gotten in her way, and she'd smashed him through a wall. It was only after the fight that she'd realized she'd shattered his skull. She hadn't even known his name until the
Watch Dogs
game she was channeling popped up a mini-profile next to his body.

She had Daddy check in on Pee Wee periodically. He was on lifetime disability. He could walk for up to five hundred yards before he needed his motor scooter.

Rainbird had trained her to be a killer, but Pee Wee had saved her.

Why was she thinking of Pee Wee?

Then she realized:
the Unimancers
.

They
had names.

She'd vowed never to kill
anyone
after what Rainbird had done to her. But the Unimancers had been goons to be swept aside, as impersonal as swatting wasps.

She closed her eyes. She didn't
want
to know them. She'd have to fight them when she got back with Daddy.

Or was this the psych ops?

She wanted the drugs gone. Without the drugs, she could be sure whether this was some show, and this didn't
feel
like a show, but…

“How many deaths do you remember on an average day?” The words squirted out of Aliyah's mouth.

“The average is between eight and nine,” a bushy-haired geriatric man volunteered. “Two die of old age, one of unrelated accidents, five dead to sealing broaches. The technical average is 8.4 per diem, 0.6 above our current replenishment rate. At this pace, combined with the broach's expansion rate, our calculations predict Europe will be critically understaffed in a decade.”

“That's… good information,” Aliyah stammered. Did he think they weren't brainwashing
enough
people into being Unimancers?

She thought of that mangled sky.

She'd never considered
why
they'd abducted her friends.

Ruth leaned over to whisper, “Numbers there was an actuarymancer. As you can see,
he
still finds comfort in tabulating demises.”

“But…” Numbers held up one quivering finger, “the average, as always, varies. Seven memorials today. One under. Though that hardly makes up for the astounding
nineteen
Unimancer deaths we chronicled one day last week–”

Icy silence.

Numbers clapped his hands over his mouth, dismayed, the Unimancers turning to face him–

“
What happened last week?
” Aliyah demanded.

“That wasn't your fault,” the old black lady said.

“He shouldn't have spoken,” the Russian twins intoned, swooping in to carry him away.

“Sometimes, you catch something close to your old passion, and it makes you disregard wiser minds,” Ruth said. “We apologize. The culpability isn't yours.”

“No!” Aliyah grabbed Numbers, keeping him close. “He can say what he likes!” Numbers pulled back, trembling from the Unimancers' collective displeasure. “What happened last week, Numbers?”

Numbers blinked owlishly.

“We…” He glanced over towards Ruth, who nodded. “We captured
you
.”

A kite string, bisecting a blond Unimancer.

Fiery helicopter wreckage raining down.

Mom putting bullets into skulls
.

“Nine dead in a single confrontation,” Numbers said. “A high aberration,
high
. Capturing rogue 'mancers is a statistically safe activity – except when it comes to your father. He's killed more in one day than we normally lose on patrol in six months – a walking spike in fatality rates.”

Aliyah had never thought of her daddy as a murderer. But here in the heart of the Unimancer network?

Paul Tsabo was the goddamned boogeyman.

The Unimancers escorted Numbers away. Ruth curled an arm around her.

“That has nothing to do with you.” Ruth hastily spooned some cassoulet into Aliyah's bowl. “You've never taken our lives. It's why we honor you, Aliyah – despite your father's bloodlust, some innate morality has kept you pure.”

“That has
everything
to do with him,” Aliyah shot back. “He taught me we're not the people who kill!”

Another 'mancer stepped forward, old, scarred. “Tell that to the seven 'mancers who died when he dropped an earthquake on our headquarters. Tell that to the squadron swallowed up by the broach he ripped open in Long Island.”

Aliyah's head spun; the Unimancers pressed in around her, their movements dizzying. “You came after him! You
hounded
him!”

“He was brewing magical
drugs
, Aliyah! Handing raw 'mancy to thugs!”

“He was–” Aliyah clenched her fists, trying to remember the good reasons Daddy had done that. This was like a game of
Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney
: her best friend was on trial and she had to muster the facts to acquit him.

Except the locals rose up, concerned because the Unimancers were concerned. Their angry faces were too much to process…

“Dad was trying to save
me
!” she blurted out.

Ruth fishmouthed, shocked. “So dumping drugs into New York and tearing open broaches was worth it to save your
face
?”

This
was
a game of
Ace Attorney
. The evidence rose before her, menus displaying facts that could clear her father's name. “It was worth it because the 'mancy was
beautiful
! Because you – you're melting down these unique magics into one hivemind!”

“Beautiful,” Ruth spat at Aliyah's feet. “Look out
there
, at that rift, and tell me that's beautiful. Men like your father created that.”

“My father is – he's nothing like–”

“He's exactly like. We
remember
. We have memories from dead 'mancers at the Battle of the Bulge. They want us to remember those bright scientists – so organized, so certain, so convinced 'mancy was
rational
–”

“Those scientists weren't 'mancers – and my father
is
–”

“Your father's triggered three broaches. Do you think that's wise, Aliyah? You think
Morehead
thinks that's wise?”

The Unimancers murmured their approval, which made Aliyah sick – Ruth distorted the facts. She closed her eyes, trying to map out the evidence like a real ace attorney.

“Thing is, Aliyah,” Ruth continued, cheeks ruddy with anger, “your father doesn't give a damn what happens to the world so long as a handful of petty iconoclasts can cast whatever pretty magic they please–”

“Ob
jec
tion!” Aliyah boomed, pointing dramatically at Ruth.

The Unimancers fell preternaturally silent, rendered mute.

Aliyah looked down. She now wore a blue suit instead of the gray prisoner's uniform she'd had on. Her black skin had faded to a pale Caucasian. She touched her hair with her non-objecting hand and discovered her curls had slicked back into an aerodynamic hairstyle, like she'd stuck her head into a wind tunnel.

Phoenix Wright. In her rage, she'd channeled the Ace Attorney.

She'd done 'mancy at the heart of the broach.

The universe split open at the tip of her index finger, unraveling in loops around the tent as the people of Bastogne began to scream.

T
he cops' faces contorted
in confusion as they trained their guns on everyone in the asylum basement.

Paul imagined how things looked from their perspective: they'd been called into a disturbance at the old asylum, found portions of the decrepit institute repaired, then walked into the basement to see a geriatric kinkster with nipple-chains holding back a one-legged accountant, and a woman fondling a bloodied hand sticking out from a cell door.

Then he saw Steeplechase reorient his fingers, his razorlike claw-tips poking into the veins on the underside of Imani's wrist, quietly taking his wife hostage.

Paul froze: was this stray flux or honest bad luck? Maybe the cops had seen Robert pull into the asylum parking lot. Maybe this was Butler's flux seeping out after weeks of tending to Steeplechase. Or maybe

YOU WILL LOSE YOUR DAUGHTER IN WAYS YOU NEVER IMAGINED

Maybe it was that sticky black flux. That was the problem with flux – things went wrong in ways designed to punish the 'mancer who'd created it.

Between Valentine, Butler, Paul, and Steeplechase, Paul had no idea who was being punished. He couldn't tell what to brace for.

But if he yanked Imani free, he'd be punished with his wife's messy death…

Then Butler held up both hands, bent down on one knee.

Calm radiated across the room.

“Officers,” Butler said – and when they spoke, the word “officers” held the solid weight of graceful authority, noble lieges to a great hierarchy. The cops relaxed, though they kept their guns raised.

“I understand this situation is confusing to the untrained eye.” Butler's voice was as satisfying as warm syrup poured over pancakes. “But if you'll join me for a drink, I assure you I can provide a profitable explanation of events.”

Butler gestured; over in the corner on a silver stand sat a French coffee press, an electric kettle with kukicha tea, a two-liter Dr Pepper bottle, and an ice-cold glass of milk.

Those weren't there when we came in
, Paul thought. Butler's 'mancy had conjured the cops' favorite drinks into existence. Paul felt Butler's skin flushing with new flux.

Imani tried not to scream as Steeplechase pulled her closer to the cell, knowing anything might break Butler's tenuous spell of politeness.

“Paul,” Valentine whispered. “Check what facts they've radioed into headquarters. We can handle the local yokels, but inbound Unimancers…?”

Paul nodded. These were local cops, but the Morehead broach had spooked everyone. They'd call in SMASH for anything odd. And if they'd alerted SMASH, then this place would be swarming with Unimancers any minute.

He could look up the dispatch records from the local station, but…

He didn't know which department had jurisdiction here. He needed a form to chain himself deeper into the station's bureaucracy to procure tonight's alerts.

A badge number. He could file the right paperwork if he had a cop's badge number.

“
Paul!
” Valentine hissed as Paul crept closer to the cops, who allowed Butler to approach the silver stand. All the while Butler talked, that mellifluous voice ensuring the police that of
course
proper procedures would be carried out, but surely a spot of tea would help settle the waters…

Paul limped, dragging his telltale artificial foot behind him, glad that Butler was so unique that for once, Paul wasn't the most interesting thing in the room. Two officers hung back in the stairwell, listening but not quite convinced. Paul leaned in as one cop hesitated, not quite willing to put down her gun to take the proffered cup of tea.

Officer A Sharpe, Badge #379.

My wife is in danger
! he thought, furious at having to spend time ensuring they weren't in
more
danger.

All this slow caution might get his wife murdered.

He wanted to thrash these cops for their insolence. Butler was assuring them of
course
the law should investigate potential intruders in abandoned property – but Paul seethed with anger that these idiots had shown up at the wrong moment.

He tracked Sharpe's badge number back to employment records at the Poughkeepsie station, chained into the hiring records to locate the names of the dispatchers, checked the shift records to see who was on for tonight. And though he fought to keep the details straight through the haze of painkillers, he determined that no, the last known call was four officers investigating a plateless SUV.

No SMASH alerts triggered.

Good. But he'd wasted half a minute filling out stupid forms – now he had to disable the cops' ability to contact SMASH.

Flux smashed into Paul.

No!
he thought.
I'd checked the dispatch records!
That was a simple request!

YOU WILL LOSE YOUR DAUGHTER IN WAYS YOU NEVER IMAGINED

He was weak, so weak–

And he'd unleashed a tide of bad luck into the room.

Butler tripped. The tea cup tumbled to the floor, shattering both the fine porcelain and Butler's reassuring spell.

The tea flowed across the floor, directing the officers' attention to Paul's artificial foot.

Their eyes widened. An artificial foot and 'mancy meant one man.

Four panicked officers fired at Paul.

“
Paul!
” Valentine cried, flinging up a blue videogame shield. Bullets sparked off, ricocheting around the room, trailing black streaks as Paul's flux guided them into the most disastrous targets–

Two bullets smashed into Butler's thigh. Butler toppled over, blood spurting into the tea.

Paul realized where the other bullets were headed – Imani, trapped by a maniac. An easy target for a stray gunshot.

Except she was encased in that thick blue barrier, shielded from every possible angle by Valentine – who'd realized Paul's flux endangered Imani the most. Valentine's eyes bulged as she battled Paul's bad luck to a standstill–

The bullets rebounded into the cell door's hinges, shattering them.

An inhuman, silent strength shoved the doorway open.

“
Down!
” Robert yelled, shoving Valentine and Paul to the floor as the officers whirled to fire on the gray beast erupting from the cell.

Only Officer Sharpe got off a shot.

Flicker
. Steeplechase smashed his elbow into Officer Sharpe's head, her spine shattering, grabbing her gun so quickly her severed fingers bounced off the walls–

Flicker
. Steeplechase rammed his forehead through another officer's skull, the cop's brains exploding like fireworks as a spray of flux erupted from Steeplechase, and–

Flicker
. He stood at the top of the stairwell, flinging the two remaining officers down the stairs until they smashed like eggs against the concrete floor, and–

“Hey!” Valentine cried. “Don't you fucking leave before tracking Aliyah!”

She reached over her shoulder, grabbing a rifle from an imaginary holster – and produced a spider-like gun humming with plasma energy, so large she grimaced holding up its weight.

Flicker
. Steeplechase stood framed at the bottom of the stairwell, kneeling by the two dead policemen he'd murdered, pressing his palm against their cooling chests. He still clutched the stolen gun, but the breaths he drew in were ragged. He cried silently as he looked towards the door, gesturing as though he wanted to explain himself.

Valentine pulled the trigger.

A jagged electrical arc wrapped around Steeplechase's ankle, hoisting him into the air.

“Gravity gun?” Robert pushed Paul back towards the cell as he pulled a first-aid kit out from his trenchcoat. “Good choice.”

“It's called the Zero-Point Energy Field Manipulator!” Valentine snapped. Valentine fought for fine control – even slight movements at this distance jerked Steeplechase around at neck-snapping speeds. “Now, you fucking wendigo, you'll–”

Even upside down and dangling and yanked at random, Steeplechase's aim was unerring.

Blood fountained from Valentine's forehead as two conflicting world-views collided in a magical concussion. The impact sent Paul tumbling as he scrambled to check on Imani; Valentine's gun flew from her hands. Steeplechase smashed into the stairwell.

Being shoved onto a concrete floor had crushed his ribs; only the painkillers allowed him to keep moving. Still, he cried with relief when he saw Valentine alive.

But she crawled with flux.

In Steeplechase's world, bullets are pure death
, he thought dizzily.
In Valentine's endless shoot-'em-up games, bullets are an inconvenience. Their 'mancy just went head-to-head, and Valentine barely survived…

Imani rammed the door away with her shoulder, flipping it over Valentine's body, using it as an impromptu shield.

“
Robert, get on Butler before they bleed out!
” Paul felt elated: his wife was alive and barking orders. “Paul, how's Valentine doing?”

Valentine staggered to her knees, her eyepatch blown off, blood dribbling down into her puckered eyesocket scar.

“That fucker…” She spat pink-tinged phlegm. “He's not… he's not getting away…”

Of course Steeplechase had vanished.

She stumbled towards the exit.

“
Are you OK?
” Paul shook her shoulders, trying to get her attention.

She hyperventilated, blinking, unable to focus on Paul. “That fucker
shot
me. That…” She swallowed. “It hurt.” She fell to her knees, clutching the door as if she intended to cram it down Steeplechase's throat. “
I'm not gonna fucking lose twice in the same week!
”

“
Valentine
.” Robert's voice was cool, calm, a paramedic's command. “I need you here. Butler needs a medpack.”

She wobbled between her lover and the escape route. Then she flicked blood off her fingers. “Sure, sure. I got a little 'mancy to spare before I give that fucker a pistol endoscopy.”

She limped past Robert, headed towards another cell – and Paul almost yelled at her
get back here
, before remembering Valentine couldn't just conjure up medpacks. Like any good first-person shooter, she had to hunt for health packs.

Another cloud of flux wreathed Valentine as she silently placed medpacks, pushing her dangerously close to her limit.
She can't fight him
, he thought.
He believes in his weapon's deadliness, and whenever she stops his bullets she's taking on near-fatal levels of flux…

Imani crossed herself as she examined the impossible ruins of each cop's body.

“This won't fix Butler,” Valentine said, crouching down beneath a cart to find a glowing white box with a red cross on it. “Remember, these things last half an hour tops.”

“That's fine.” Robert bent over Butler with surgical scissors, grimacing as he cut off their fine leather pants. “The artery's nicked. It'll take major surgery to close it up…”

“Temporary's better than dead, sure, sure, got it.” She pushed the white box into Butler's gurgling body; the wound closed shut.

She clutched her head, her flux overflowing. Seeing Valentine lose it filled him with terror – Valentine had
never
shit the bed on her flux…

A tiny box tumbled from Robert's vest pocket.

His engagement ring rolled across the concrete to land at Valentine's feet.

“Oh, no,” she muttered, recoiling in horror. “Oh, no, no, no, you
didn't
…”

Robert crouched down to scoop the ring up, inadvertently kneeling before her – and Valentine tripped, falling ass-backwards. “You don't understand,” he apologized. “I was going to…”

Tears mixed with her blood. “I
know
what you were going to!”

He took in her terror – then clutched his belly like he'd been punched. He rolled the ring between two fingers, squinting as if he couldn't believe what he was saying:

“Your bad luck is me
proposing
?”

“No, baby.” She tensed, ready to flee. “It's more complicated than that–”

His face contorted in exquisite betrayal. “Your bad luck is me discovering how much you don't want to be with me?”

“No! Jesus, do you know how
happy
you make me, you dumb fuck? I want to be
with
you, you just… you can't
go
where I need you to–”

“I'll go anywhere.”

She clawed tears away. “You
say
that, but then
you won't come with me!”

He stood up, leaving the ring behind, pulling Valentine to her feet. “Where do you want me? I've always stayed a footstep behind you in case you needed me–”

“How would you know what
I
need, you asshole?” She stared down at her hands wrapped in his as though his fingers were the gentlest of handcuffs, trembling with shock and humiliation. “I just got
shot
! Maybe you should, I don't know,
paramedic
or something! Because you sure can't go
punch
that fucker, like you used–”

“
Stop it
!”

Imani's voice boomed across the room. She looked so shaken, her weariness highlighted their argument's extravagance.

“You can…” She wiped her bloodied hands on her skirt. “You can fix your personal issues on your time. Right now, the man who can find Aliyah is
getting away
.”

Robert frowned at the dead cops. “We wanna sic that on Aliyah? The living murder-tornado?”

Imani traced the claw marks on her wrist. “He… Yeah. I'm not excusing that. But he also slammed me behind a door so I wouldn't get shot once he went for them. I think he's sympathetic to our cause, he just can't…”

She massaged her forehead.

“He can't
not
hunt his next target. So Valentine. Find him now. Work out your marital issues on your own time.”