Going Under (18 page)

Her account was hysterical, garbling about creatures from I-space forming from nothing, attacking them and snatching them away. This man had thrown out some kind of line from Faery and hauled her from the jaws of a Krakenlike monstrosity just in time. She had become suspicious when no others turned up with him at their camp and as soon as this happened he had simply pressed a slip of parchment into her hand, told her to take it to her superiors, that it was from friends, and then vanished, along with all of his gear and even the one canister of drinkable water. She had struggled and wandered lost and starving in the wilds for uncounted days before finding a friendly pixie who had agreed to lead her back in exchange for her wristwatch. The parchment code turned out to be the key to the blueprints, though it was at least eight months more before anyone figured this out.

The blueprints caused another kind of hysteria. They included ordinary plans for circuits, processors, and robotics-which themselves were far from ordinary-but among the components required to make these pieces were aetherical artefacts and substances that could not be acquired in Otopia. Of course there was a hoo-ha about whether anyone could, or whether they should, or what it would lead to but eventually they went ahead, found, stole, mined, borrowed, and bought the materials, and made some of the things. At which point nothing happened.

Nothing continued to happen until one day quite by chance (although a footnote cast doubt on this and referred her to a lengthy treatise on Chance: God's Dice or Intent at Work?) an engineer was tinkering with a piece of the mysterious stuff. He had earlier that day suffered a blow on the head and a cut finger as a result of an accident with his garage door. Now as he picked up the strange little bit of technological gubbins to attach it to an ordinary CPU-which was the only use they had so far found for it, it being not unlike attaching the total computing power of the Western Seaboard to one's CPU-he said it reacted with the blood on his hand. It was at this moment he realised that the blueprints were for cyborg components. He added later in written testimony that he had been "continually aware of some kind of presence in the room" ever since they had first made the com ponents, "as if something was always looking over my shoulder. That time I touched the thing, I felt it push my hand down and for a minute I thought I saw ... I dunno ... some kind of weird face in the glass [of the eyeshield that covers the worktable]."

Because of the untrustworthy nature of the machines they had continued to analyse them only through the mediation of ordinary human-made computers until an Agency operative in Demonia, working there secretly, had been returned minus an arm. They offered him a huge compensation package and early retirement on full pay for the span of his life if he agreed to test out a prosthetic involving some of the unusual machinery. Of course they had lied a lot to make it sound less dangerous and he had agreed.

There was no record of who he was in the file. The only note that was made was the medical report of his final discharge, five days after the operations that attached it to his stump.

"Continuing allergenic issues with the prosthesis. Successfully treated with IgE inhibitors locally applied. Subject reports occasional pain but limb functions far better than any currently available prosthetic of the same type. External powerpacks too heavy, causing problems. Battery life too short. Lasts approximately three hours. Ongoing."

Some months later. "Subject reports continuing pains, minor in nature. Inflammation normal. Subject reports `presence' of the arm `as if it has mind of its own' though it does nothing unusual. Tranquillizers prescribed. IgE inhibitors working. No infection. Improved battery lighter and easier to use."

Then they discovered that one of the mystery blueprints that seemed to make something completely useless was, in fact, a power converter. It extended the ordinary battery life of the guy's rechargeables to twelve hours. After that they found entire power arrays which managed so well that they could reduce the size of the battery by a factor of one hundred and fit it into the arm itself instead of strapping it to the man's waist. Then there was an excluded document.

Refer File: Cold Fusion Micro Reactor. Access Denied.

Refer File: Aetheric Gravitational Fields. Access Denied.

Refer File: Microminiaturisation in Aethero-Electric Materials. Access Denied.

One file that was allowed suddenly showed an explosion of experimental subjects. Most of these were animals. Nothing exceptional was revealed in their records. All of them concluded with the single phrase: Test Terminated-and a date and time, followed by: Materials Recovered. Cremation.

Then came her file.

She paused and looked through the black-and-white words to the face of the sombre faery. "Have you read this?"

He nodded, very slightly.

She read on. There was more of it than she expected. Every day since she had arrived in pieces had an extensive entry until the documents ended abruptly at a date nine days ago. But what really caught her attention the most was something that came from the Technical Medical centre some weeks before that. It had detailed an analysis of her metal elementals and then the increased activity of the components themselves.

"... appear to be remodelling and growing spontaneously. Rate of increase of adaptation jumped to cubic progression. Subject reports lessening of interface distinctions once again. Analysis protocols still effective. Spyware providing bit torrent rate in excess of processable levels within Otopian technology. Cannot assess risks within timely limits ... suspect alien infiltration ... possible consciousness ... war for control ... sublimation of subject ... irresponsible and unpredictable behaviours unfitting to an agent ... contamination irreversible ... controlware unreliable ...

"Action Recommended: immediate termination."

Delaware's signature appeared in the records to verify that she had read this document. It was the last entry of hers before Williams had managed to have her thrown out.

There were other things in there Lila hadn't known, but she pushed them aside for the time being. She closed down the files and squashed the chip to a smear of basic materials, pumping enough electrons through it to remove any suggestion it had ever held data. She put it in her pocket. Malachi met her gaze and they sat in silence for a while, drinking Faery Lite and listening to the rain patter on the yurt.

released them," Malachi said in reply to Lila's question about the Mothkin. He shrugged and put his head back against the yurt pole. They were on their third bottle each. "It was the only thing I could think of that would provide a safe but annoying distraction for the Agency. I thought it would give us time to seize your control system or, well, at least we got this chip. But it's worse than I intended. And now I can't get them back in."

"And nobody knows about this? Why is that? Why doesn't anyone spy on you?"

"Oh they do, they do," grinned Malachi and flicked his fingers around at various points in the room, indicating symbols, objects, signs. "But I have methods for getting around it."

"The Hoodoo," she said, just repeating the word she'd heard Zal use.

"Useful for many things as long as you use it wisely," he rubbed his fingers and thumb together and laughed. "Zal knows. He likes to gamble, unfortunately. Best he not try it himself."

"Why not?"

"The Hoodoo always collects."

"What is it?"

"A force," he shrugged again and let his head hang forward. "A game." He smiled a little smile and she decided to drop it, because she wouldn't understand and she knew the smile too well.

"Well, what do we do now?"

"I thought that once we had secured you, we would recall the moths," he said, slow and quiet, "but actually there may be benefits to delaying that. I think maybe they're all that's preventing the Agency from putting more effort into you and me. Of course, no doubt they're hanging fire with your execution because they believe you're the best hope to finish off the moth problem. Best they keep believing that. And anyway, it's true enough."

"I'll go along with the first part."

"Yeah, well, we're going into Faery to get the ability to recall them. Once we have it, then we can decide what to do with it."

"Hold them to ransom."

"Maybe. No telling until we get back."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Things get strange when you spend time in Faery," he said. "A logical course, like the one you just described, when you get back it doesn't seem so straight. So, let's just go with what we have. In the meantime, before ..." he glanced at the clock on his desk, "... before Williams wakes up I'll let you talk to Jones."

"The Strandloper."

"Yes."

Lila started to get up.

"No need," Malachi waved her down. "I'll call her."

He flickered, literally. She stared at him, believing her eyes because she could replay the event an infinite number of times, but still openmouthed. He faded. Then he vanished. Mal had never done this before, as far as she knew. Except obviously he had. Who knew? She was reasonably sure that the Agency didn't. For a few seconds there was a shadow where he'd been, and sometimes it seemed that it had ears, whiskers, and a tail. Then he was back, just like that.

"She'll be right along," he said hoarsely, wiping at a gleam of perspiration on his forehead and chugging the final half of his beer with unusual relish.

Lila took a swig from her bottle, noted its ever-changing delicious gingery notes, and nodded as though this was all quite regular. She felt a familiar type of air push, as when Teazle teleported in, but a little bit softer by some micro-order. Then there were three of them in the tent.

"Yo," said the girl in the corner.

Lila was startled by how young she was and how exhausted she looked. What used to be a T-shirt and jeans had been added to with an elvish jacket and various belts and bits of leather armour until she resembled an odd kind of forest ranger. She was grubby, but her eyes were bright. Lila wondered if she were on drugs but felt Tath's reaction and realised it was aether.

Malachi handed out fresh drinks and said, "Lila, this is Jones. Jones, Lila Black."

"Hey," Jones said. She sat on the floor. "So, what's the deal?"

Lila squinted, she was sure Jones was human, or used to be. Tath uncoiled and crept as far as he dared to the surface. He and Lila still weren't talking.

"Do you remember I told you about the Ghost Hunters?" Malachi asked Lila.

She nodded. The entire thing made her flesh crawl. With her free hand she picked up and held out the amulet. "Can you tell me anything about this?"

Jones sniffed and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand before shuffling closer. As she neared Tath slid away. For a moment Lila thought she saw Malachi right through the woman's head but then she was close. She smelled of stale sweat. She held the amulet but didn't try to pull it closer or off of Lila's neck.

"Leather strap, wooden circle--driftwood, seaworn, no carvingsinset stone, some kind of carnelian, uncut-a found object. Some kind of warding charm, very primitive to look at. So far so dull, but we are in bloody Otopia and I am human, so what were you expecting?"

"Isn't there anything unusual about it?"

"Not that I can see. Why, did some faery tell you it would raise the dead or something?" Jones glanced at Malachi with a sly smile and Mal rolled his eyes.

"No," Lila said, disappointed. "What about this one?" She held out the silver spiral.

Jones took it the same way and turned it around and around. When she reached the open end and tried to pull it back she found the fine chain it was on firmly back in the centre, which is what always happened. She dropped it with a start and then peered at it again. "I don't know," she said, but her brashness had gone, replaced by interest. "I never saw anything like this before."

"That's because you don't know many fey," Malachi said, shifting uncomfortably.

"But the magic worked right here," Jones said, looking up at him, puzzled. She abruptly swept her ratty dreadlocks out of her face and back over her shoulders. "I mean, some things kind of work here, but in their own place that means ..."

"They're very powerful. I know," he said. "I don't know what it is either, except it must come from before the fall, when we lost the greater magics."

Both women looked up at him now, waiting.

"It was a long time ago, I guess," he said. "Before human recorded history, well, actually about the same time as the Lascaux cave painters daubed the Wall. Which isn't unrelated ... but that's off the point. Another brew?"

They nodded silently and he went to get three more bottles and hand them out, talking all the while.

"Before the fall Faery had the greatest aetheric power of all the known worlds and the elves and the demons spent most of their time in various plots trying to get more of it for themselves. So we fought with them some. And at the same time human beings were embroiled in their own history, into which they occasionally bribed, bought, charmed, won, or were generously given a great deal of our help. After a time it was clear that too much was being lost and misused, so we decided that we would lose the greater magics until a bit later on when things looked more reasonable."