Morte (25 page)

There was genuine anguish in her voice. Bonaparte was supposed to be the success story of the RS, having overcome his past as a farm animal, the lowest of the slaves. She truly worried about him. It was so like a dog.
So like Sheba
.

“So when does the quarantine begin?” Mort(e) said.

“We don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? What other information do you need?”

“The Colony has ordered us to stand by.”

“Stand by for what?”

“Mort(e), you know that the Queen doesn’t have to explain herself. But there is some good news.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re fired. There will no longer be any need for your investigation. We’re going to set up a hospital to keep the potential victims away from the others. We hope it buys us enough time to evacuate the settlers. So my last orders to you: turn in any outstanding reports, go home, and remain calm.”

All the people Mort(e) interviewed were under house arrest, she said. But all military personnel would be sent to a processing station and reassigned to some other settlement.

They were almost to the river. Mort(e) gripped Wawa’s elbow. “You don’t really believe that, do you?” he asked.

She snapped her arm out of his grasp and headed toward the trucks. “Pull yourself together before I put you in a cell with Bonaparte,” she said.

“Answer me.”

“Go home,” she said, spinning away from him. “That’s my answer.”

She headed toward the RS trucks, where a large horseshoe of Alpha soldiers kept the remaining crowd at bay. Another group escorted the last of the humans into the ship. At the base of the plank, an Alpha awaited the report from the leader of the Red Sphinx.

Culdesac passed through the line of Alphas and approached the lead ant soldier. The colonel wore his translator—a newer model, slightly smaller than the one Mort(e) had stolen. The onlookers jostled one another to get a closer look at the exchange. That left a few Alphas at the end of the row standing guard against nothing.

Mort(e) stood in front of the last Alpha and pulled the device from his backpack. The soldier remained still. The only movement came from the hundreds of normal-sized ants that crawled on her exoskeleton. Mort(e) placed the translator on his head, adjusting the mouthpiece. The smaller ants stopped moving. They waited for him to begin. Mort(e) took a deep breath and pictured himself
resting in the basement, lounging beside Sheba, when the Martini house was the entire universe and nothing could disturb it.

He put the earbud into place.

A thousand voices screamed random numbers and sounds into Mort(e)’s ears. The same figures scrolled across his field of vision, brushing against his coat until he felt them crawling on his skin like insects. His only connection to the real world was the feeling of his useless choker hands coiling into fists. According to Yojimbo, the randomness should have been coalescing into words by now, if not full sentences. Mort(e) was losing control of it. The words grew louder. They changed color and began cutting into his skin. They smelled like an electrical charge. He tried to imagine the basement. Sheba was no longer there. Only the message remained—
SHEBA IS ALIVE
. The words rattled and fell from the wall, shattering on the floor.

DARKNESS. A METAL
smell. Sweat and dirt. Mort(e)’s knees rubbing against a steel surface. His sides are closed in. An air duct. Tiberius (Socks) is right behind him. Culdesac is ahead. (One time, before a mission, Culdesac asked Tiberius if he was ready to die, and Tiberius said, “Do you think I joined this outfit because I wanted to live?” And everyone laughed.) Culdesac’s enormous tail wags. They are infiltrating a cell of humans who have taken shelter in an old army bunker. The humans are smart. Willing to die. The walls are impervious even to bomb strikes. The ants are unable to dislodge the enemy without devoting an enormous effort to the task. There are explosives rigged everywhere. Culdesac tells them to move quickly, but to touch nothing, and to be quiet. “Anything can trip the bombs,” he says.

Then gunshots, penetrating the air duct. The humans have detected them. They panic, firing at everything. The sound
rattles the entire shaft. Rays of fluorescent light poke through the darkness with each bullet hole. Younger members of the team yell out, giving away their position. Culdesac tells them to shut up. They try to scramble back the way they came, making more noise. “Over here,” the humans yell. “Over here!” Culdesac takes his rifle from his shoulder. He crawls to a section of the duct riddled with bullet holes. With the butt of his rifle, he slams the panel and bursts through it. He has only one chance before the humans begin shooting. He crashes down into a room, tearing through metal and drywall. Mort(e) prepares to jump in after him. He calls to Tiberius (Socks). Tiberius (Socks) does not answer. Tiberius (Socks) lies motionless. Tiberius (Socks) is dead. Mort(e) plunges into the fountain of light. He lands on a table. The room is some kind of lounge. Culdesac kneels behind a couch, screaming for Mort(e) to take cover with him. A dead man sits on the couch. Other than the bleeding hole in his temple, the man seems relaxed. Mort(e) leaps behind the couch. Culdesac shoots the lights out. Now only the cats can see. Muzzle flashes light up the room, each one a blinking star illuminating a terrified human face.

MORT(E) STOOD IN
the Martinis’ basement again. The message about Sheba was on the wall. Sunlight entered through the windows. But it was cold, and Sheba was not there. Still, he felt relieved. The initial shocks of the device were beginning to subside. He controlled his brain’s reaction, but he was not ready to communicate yet. He no longer had a connection to the real world. He could not feel his finger stumps pressing into his hands. For all he knew, he was standing there with
his mouth open, already surrounded by Wawa’s soldiers. He closed his eyes and tried to focus. Maybe he would survive this after all, even if the quarantine killed him and everyone else the next day.

He opened his eyes. The basement had now returned to its prewar state. The graffiti was gone. Sitting in her favorite spot, in defiance of all those lost years, was Sheba. Mort(e) got closer. She rose like she had on the day he took her on a journey to the attic at the top of the world.

IDENTIFICATION
, she said. But her mouth did not move. Mort(e) felt the word travel through him.

Now that he had arrived at his happy place, Mort(e) was unable to gain control of his mouth.

IDENTIFICATION
, the voice repeated.

Mort(e)
, he said at last.
OF dash 2.961630
.

Sheba shuddered like an ancient machine switched on after years of lying dormant. At one point, she even flickered like an image on television.

COMMUNICATION ENGAGED
.

A clicking sound began, which Mort(e) interpreted as the device’s software kicking in, manifesting itself in the dream world interface he had created.

I’m …
 Mort(e) stopped, remembering that he needed to speak in short, declarative sentences. The ants did not communicate in messages that began with personal acknowledgements or ended with question marks.

Requesting description of EMSAH syndrome
. That one sentence was exhausting, leaving him gasping for air.

Sheba flickered again.
BIOWEAPON HUMAN. DEPLOYED. INFECTIOUSSPREADINGCONTAGIOUS. NO CURE. DEADLY. CURE UNKNOWN
.

This was what Yojimbo talked about: you had to keep the questions simple in order to keep the fragmented answers
manageable. Sheba blurted out adjectives, all telling Mort(e) what he already knew.

Acknowledged
, Mort(e) said. Sheba stopped
. Requesting source of EMSAH
.

HUMANS HUMANITY HUMANKIND
.

Requesting … description of EMSAH infection
.

More clicking and flickering. Then:

PATHOGEN CONCEPTION-INTRODUCTION TO SUSCEPTIBLE-SUGGESTIBLE SUBJECT
.

Mort(e) sighed at the jargon. Sheba stopped talking.

Requesting description of EMSAH infection
, Mort(e) repeated.

Sheba began again.
ACUTE CEREBELLAR ATAXIA CEREBRAL HYPOXIA. INSERTION POINT SELF-TRANSCENDENCE VESICULAR MONOAMINE TRANSPORTER. ENVIRONMENTAL STIMULI
 …

The illusion of the basement began to disintegrate. The faces of the human soldiers appeared in flashes around Sheba.

NEUROTRANSMITTER INHIBITOR. EUPHORIA-FLYING. LOGICAL FACULTIES DISCARDED. SUBJECT DESIRES [DESPERATE-WANTING] DEATH-LIFE. SOCIAL PATTERN REINITIALIZED. NEW CONSTRUCT …

Death-life?

Acknowledged
, Mort(e) said. Sheba stopped talking. For a moment, the flickering images of the human soldiers stopped.
Requesting explanation of death-life
.

The muzzle flashes returned as the translator processed the request, blinking in synch with the clicking noise.

LIFEDEATHLIFEDEATHLIFEDEATHLIFEDEATHLIFEDEATHLIFEDEATHLIFEDEATH
.

Death-life is life-death? That doesn’t make any—

REPEAT
.

Requesting explanation of relationship between EMSAH and death-life
.

EMSAH IS DEATH-LIFE. SUBJECT DELUDEDPOLLUTEDCONTAMINATED WITH DEATH-LIFE. SUBJECT DEATH-LIFE. SUBJECT BECOMES DEATH-LIFE
.

What?

DEATH-LIFE BECOMES SUBJECT. OVERLOAD. SOCIAL REINITIALIZATION FAILURE INEVITABLE
.

Requesting explanation of relationship between subject and death-life
.

SUBJECT ENTERS DEATH-LIFE. OVERLOAD. DEATH-LIFE OVERRIDE. LOGICAL FACULTIES DISCARDED
.

Requesting explanation of relationship between logical faculties and death-life
.

Sheba tilted her head as if being tempted with a treat.
INCOMPATIBLEIMPOSSIBLE
.

So death-life was not logical now?

Requesting description of final stages of EMSAH
.

Sheba did not hesitate:
NO-NAME WAR
.

Requesting explanation of relationship between EMSAH and Mort(e) OF 2.961630
.